Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, one of the major morals in the book is censorship, and a short story Coda by the same author, talks about the censorship that happens to his books and how this ruins society. In Coda, Bradbury states that those who edit out “subjective” things in his book, “Skin, debone, demarrow, scarcify melt, render down, and destroy” ( Bradbury 2) his books. They take all the subjective and beautiful descriptions and turn them into plain, simple, and boring things. They censor what might offend, but they censor it too much to the point where it makes a book, “become a non-book” ( Bradbury 5). Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is the same way. As Beatty, the captain of the firemen says, “Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book” (Bradbury 57). This is another example of the censorship because it shows the way they try to keep peace by keeping everyone ignorant. This isn’t the way that peace should be kept. Both of these texts have strong ties to the way society censors things that may make people upset and how it isn’t right because it takes away individuality and opinions to keep peace.

The government censors literature in Fahrenheit 451 the most out of everything they do censor. Guy Montag very quickly discovers their censorship on literature. Ray Bradbury states “ ‘Do you ever read any of the books you burn?’ He laughed. ‘ That’s against the law!’ ‘oh of

In this story censorship, plays a big role and is one of the key important themes portrayed throughout the novel. Politicians today have done similar things to attempt to censor citizens from situations in foreign countries just like the firemen from Fahrenheit 451. In Ray Bradbury’s novel, the firemen burn the books to shield their people from knowledge of the past. They want to keep their society pure and away from anything that will make them to not obey their protocols. The examples of censorship in the book would be banning of literature, burning offensive novels and sometimes burning the owners of the books with them. In Fahrenheit 451, censorship has an immense effect on the dystopian society’s characteristics and intelligence.

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 by Ray Bradbury in the US. His book is set in a dystopian society where books are illegal and and thinking is restricted. Instead of firemen putting out fires, they start them.. Bradbury’s famous book has been mainly challenged by middle schools and high schools. While Fahrenheit 451 maybe the most controversial novel in the 20th century, it holds the award as being one of the most notable banned books in history. No other book has been written like this so mysterious and real. The idea of how books are banned doesn’t really matter to most people. While Fahrenheit 451 might include some vulgar language and profanity, it shares ideas that can help young people.

Fahrenheit 451 has been censored to high school audiences and younger because of multiples controversies and mature themes within the book. The article "Fahrenheit 451." from Novels for Students (a section of Gale Virtual Reference Library) states that one reason why Fahrenheit 451 is banned is because “The book people, represented mostly by scholars, will save humanity, while ordinary people

Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, expresses his perspective on life in an interview. His interview contains a common theme: "Do what you love, and love what you do" (Bradbury). Bradbury sends a message in his interview that people should love life, and live to the fullest because he believes life is a beautiful thing. Although Bradbury no longer can demonstrate his love for life his message still lives in the pages of Fahrenheit 451. The Government of the society in the novel has told their citizens that thinking is as useless as a broken power tool. The citizens are told that books are meaningless, and have no value to anything except those who want to create chaos. The Government replaced all the meaningful things in society with seashells that can play music and television sets fit to fill a wall. For some, the TV 's have become so important that they replace family interaction. The Government has corrupted society. The protagonist, Guy Montag 's profession is to burn books, but he does not know that the government requires him to do this in order for them to restrict knowledge. Clarisse, Montag 's neighbor, lives in a home where socializing and thinking are essential. On the contrary, these elements are highly unusual in society. Montag has always been curious, but Clarisse sets Montag on a journey that involves being rebellious, curious, and persistent by asking him a strange question. These characteristics set Montag apart from society. Montag has been

In Fahrenheit 151, a book written by Ray Bradbury, one of the major points of the plot is censorship. In the beginning of Fahrenheit 451, Montag, the protagonist, begins to steal books from the fires he’s responded to and hides them inside his air vent. Beatty, his chief, explains how books used to be and how citizens were horrified and offended by them. Authors began to edit their books, trying not to offend anyone, and as a result, began to create dull and boring books. Society then decided to burn all the books then have more people offended by them. Montag then decides to talk to Faber, a retired professor who team up to start planting reprinted books in houses for firemen to find. After trying to show his wife about the books and how useful they are, his wife betrays Montag by burning his house down. This was society’s way of censorship, by banning books that promote free thinking.

In the article “You are Guy Montag: Ray Bradbury's #1 Censorship Concern” the author Nancy Lambert explains that censorship in books sparks a lot of interests because of the literacy and themes. In Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451 the overall theme of the book is book burning due to government regulations taken over society. In the article “You are Guy Montag: Ray Bradbury’s #1 Censorship Concern” Lambert claims, “Though book banning was a common theme in his work, in real life, it wasn’t big-brother top-down censorship that concerned him most, but the kind of insidious censorship that is brewed from the bottom up, from apathy, or distraction,...” (Lambert). Certain censorships are implemented with ridiculous rules because it is not caused by the government, but the people itself. Censorship is important because information that is leaked can possibly cause a lot of controversy and be misinterpreted. For example, in the article Lambert states, “However, the most egregious censorship of Fahrenheit 451 was actually by its publisher(more on that in a moment)” (Lampert). Going into writing and publishing the novel Bradbury had to tell the story how books really impacted the world and the consequences that can occur if books were eliminated. Bradbury got a lot of heat from this because his story seemed too real for the near future. This became the poster child for censorship because of all the

When writing the introduction to Fahrenheit 451, author Neil Gaiman stated that “ideas--written ideas--are special. They are the way we transmit our stories and our thoughts from one generation to the next. If we lose them, we lose our shared history”. Gaiman is absolutely correct; especially because what he is saying heavily applies to books. Books are a critical aspect in shaping humanity as a whole, they create and share a network of creative ideas, history, and overall entertainment; to lose books would be like losing patches of humankind’s history. Creativity, history, feelings and thoughts: all of the aspects that make us human...gone. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury illustrates the story of a man named Guy Montag, who struggles to live in a futuristic dystopian society where censorship through book burning is prominent. Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses multiple motifs to emphasize a certain idea or convey a message to the reader better. A motif is a recurring subject, theme, idea, or even a physical object that appears in literature. Ray Bradbury’s hostile tone towards technology gives meaning to the reader by depicting the message that technology has the power to completely detach people from their genuine emotions, as well as urge readers to not get too attached to technology because it separates them from relationships in real life.

Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is expressed in a literal fashion. It was created because the government believed that they were creating a utopia by unifying their people and erasing what separates them, but by doing so, it created the loss of identity. This is shown when Montag’s captain

A variety of themes are addressed in Fahrenheit 451, most of which are prevalent to our current situation. Because of this, the book was originally banned for sending the wrong political message and having offensive language. Although there is much irony and humor in the fact that a book warning about the implications of banning books was banned, that topic of discussion has been well over mentioned to the point where the political and social message that Ray Bradbury was trying to address through symbolism and parallelism between his fictional twenty fourth century dystopian society and our society during the time the book was written, Cold War America, is largely ignored. Through Ray

Firstly, in the futuristic world of Fahrenheit 451, the theme of censorship is shown through the actions of the characters in the book. People of this society do not think independently nor do they have meaningful conversations and they don’t even have an interest in reading books. They most likely fear knowledge because they are probably afraid of knowing more about the war going on, which leads them to depend on the government to think for them. Subsequently, they need something to occupy their time. This is where television and mass media comes in. Instead of expanding their knowledge, they watch an extreme amount of television on wall-size sets and listen to sea-shells which are little radios attached to their ears and people drive extremely fast due to lack of appreciation for nature; they never really take the time to look around and admire

“People need quality information, the leisure to digest it, and the freedom to act on what has been learned.”(Bradbury 85) When these aspects are removed from a society, human beings lose every right to freedom and individualism. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 and the short story Harrison Bergeron, this proves to be more than true. These pieces of literature each display similar values of society, technological advancements, rebellious acts, and a human desire for fulfillment of equality.

In "You Have Insulted Me" a letter by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is another good example of censorship in our own society. That relates to Fahrenheit 451 concerning censorship but there is also a difference in Fahrenheit 451 compared to the "the letter" by Vonnegut. In Fahrenheit the idea of censorship are no books what so ever because of the lack of society reading, but in "the letter" books are denied to younger readers and the public because of content, such as vulgarity, and sexuality. They both lack knowledge that is given but never fully taken in and which makes them both a censored society/world.

They are comfortable reading tabloids, consuming trivial information and watching tv, all the while having no control in their government. This theme of censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is not only a huge detriment to the dystopian world but can also serve as a lesson in what could happen if our society were to censor. The world of Fahrenheit 451 is greatly affected by censorship. People are censored daily, often killed for having strange or different ideas. Not that people often think, according to Captain Beatty the government dissuades people from thinking and goes so far as to near brainwash people from a young age (Bradbury 62).