The Tale of a Controlled Society

In the world of Fahrenheit 451, books are burned because they are “confusing”, schools teach students with meaningless facts, and people are forced to drive at high speeds so they can’t see what’s around them. We can see that people stopped pondering their surroundings in the world of the book. In schools, students are crammed with useless facts, and are not taught about the reasons behind it. By extracting the “meaning”, it limited types of expressions. Books were one of them. Knowledge changed to simply “knowing” facts, without the reasons. By manipulating the understanding of knowledge and inquiry, books were considered confusing and “not good”. In the end, it was the public that stopped reading books, as Beatty said.

The governmental control of the society in Fahrenheit 451 is unbelievable; it's unbelievable to think that the government could have so much control. The government has so much control due to the loss of individuality caused by conformity. According to the author, "They all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else" (Bradbury 31). This was done in several ways; some of the ways were through the lack of books, education (or what we believe education to be), and the lack of teachers. The influence (pure control) of the government over the media, education, and any literature that was available to the public. The media and entertainment is controlled by the government to the point that its citizens have better relationships with media personalities than with their own families. The government grasped the rights of education by not educating and allowing its students to run a muck. According to the author, "Clarisse - I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other" (Bradbury

In the novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the society that is currently present is in a very difficult state. They do not know how to handle themselves and they are self-dependent on what the government has to offer. In addition, the people in this society are not able to communicate with others and as a result they have become self-reliant on technology. This makes them unable to think and get ideas because the government does not allow it. Ultimately, they are faced with the increasing power of the government and its ability to take advantage of this society. The three major issues in the novel are that their society relies on the government for their decisions, they use technology an overwhelming amount, and they did not have the option

The freedom to think is often taken for granted among civilization. What people do not realize is that their freedom of thought can be controlled with enough deceit and manipulation. Sometimes, most people do not even know that the way they think is being controlled. This fact is proven in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The book peers into a dystopian society led by a corrupt government. Total mental and political control is what the government wants, while freedom of thought is what they do not want. These goals are achieved through means that are subtle, and obvious: manipulation through social media, through legal restrictions, and through the destruction of books.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury tells a story about the utopian future where the government controls human identity. In that society there is no place for free thoughts. Those who read are outlawed and sometimes killed. On the first pages of the novel, Juan Jimenez wrote a striking quote:” If they give you ruled paper write the other way”, and that quote pretty much shows the author’s attitude toward public pressure, censorship and oppression. It unquestionably can be stated that without knowledge there is no freedom, books- are the only answer to the demise of the oppressor.

Fahrenheit 451 is currently Bradbury's most famous written work of social criticism. It deals with serious problems of control of the masses by the media, the banning of books, and the suppression of the mind (with censorship). Even though Bradbury published this novel in 1953, it predicted a major outlook on how the future’s society would turn out. Technology plays a big part in how we all function in our everyday lives. With technology, everything is much more convenient, and everyone has a much easier access to voice their opinions. In the novel, in order to keep this in line, the government created a culture where it is forbidden to have any outside influences which would promote individual thoughts. In the result of this new law,

In conclusion, destroying information and filling people’s minds with useless data allows the government to obtain and maintain control over the populous in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

In Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, censorship plays a significant role in the dystopian society. The novel illustrates what it would be like if the government had full control of what society reads, watches, or communicates. According to Bradbury, this perpetuates ignorance because society blindly obeys the government. Most people in the novel are unaware of their unhappiness with society, including Mildred, Guy Montag’s wife, who almost commits suicide by mistakenly taking an entire bottle of sleeping pills. Censorship has a great effect on the personalities and knowledge of the people in the society. The society is essentially “trapped” in a toxic world filled with ignorance (Mogen 105). The government feels by controlling all forms of media, society should be cooperative and happy; however, once citizens become distracted by the consequences of owning and reading books, unhappiness and chaos occur. Reading books promotes knowledge, which encourages people to think, but because of censorship, the society has become ignorant.

James Madison once said that “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”James Madison quote relates to Fahrenheit 451 because when Montag finally had realized how good books are, he didn’t let the government tell him what to do or what he cannot learn. Knowledge is a powerful factor that empowers people

They are purposely limiting the knowledge of all the people. Knowing this, we can be sure that knowledge is being controlled. The people are being denied actual, helpful, and logical information to make them more vulnerable to do whatever the government tells them. (SIP-B) Along with knowledge being manipulated, memory is being tampered with in order for the government to get what they want. (STEWE-1) Being able to focus is one of the many ways to gain new memories. If you focus on your surroundings and don’t zone out constantly, you will remember many things. In the Fahrenheit 451 society, nobody focuses on anything because of all the distractions the government has given them and trained them to use on a daily basis. While Montag is on the train, he was truly trying to focus on his book, but he was too unfocused to remember even a sentence, “He clenched the book in his fists. Trumpets blared. 'Denham's Dentifrice'. Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field...'Dentifrice!'"

In Fahrenheit 451, the government uses fear, propaganda, and brutal force to gain control of their citizens.The goal was enable ignorance to control society for instance, Firemen burned books for “censorship” books informed people with information which was threatful to the government because it was easier to control people if they were

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, details a world filled with mindless entertainment and a lack of self-expression. Everyone is not only discouraged to think for themselves, but also fearful of unique thoughts and ideas. A quote from the book that would describe this is, “It was a pleasure to burn…with the brass nozzle in his fists…blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history…While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark and burning.” (1) Books, which would provide information and knowledge, are forbidden and burned. The owner who is caught with them is put in prison. The idea of a society run by one who dictate the rules, take away all freedom. These consequences for disobeying and being an “individual” are strong reasons the

People should be given the freedom to think outside the box and outsmart technology. In the book Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, the society isn’t given an option to think or read books, but a man named Guy Montag decides to break that law and make a change in the community. In comparison to the real world, the government is taking away the opportunity to think by forbidding books, censoring many ideas to prevent people from wanting to see the outside world, and by letting technology take over people’s minds and attention.

Firemen today are around to put out fires, but in Fahrenheit 451, the temperature books burn, they are the ones that start the fires when they hear about a house that contains books. Anti-Intellectualism was used in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by the firemen burning books and the houses that contained them. Anti-Intellectualism is when a group or individual disagrees with given knowledge, for example burning books in Fahrenheit 451 because they disagreed with the knowledge contained within them. Firemen saw books as nothing but a waste, but still went through with harsh punishments to anyone in possession of a book because it was a law. Similar was done throughout history. Something like that was a huge world event showing that we can be punished for knowledge. Events like the Salem witch trials, nazi occupied germany, and isis all believed that information should be censored and heavily practiced anti-intellectualism. That similar illegalization and burning of books in Fahrenheit 451 leads to unhappiness, anti-intellectualism of citizens, and even death to the very people who believed it was better for the population.

Orwell and Bradbury both address the issue of ‘knowledge is power’ through the character’s restriction of access to information. Both authors do so by removing literature from their societies. Fahrenheit 451 uses firemen to incinerate books, and in 1984, any book printed earlier than 1960 no longer exists. Orwell, however, takes this restriction further by removing words from the language, also known as Newspeak, in order to “narrow the range of thought”, eventually making thought crime impossible. This suggests that the governments within these texts believe that if they remove literature, an individual cannot be influenced by various sources and form one’s own opinion. Therefore, citizens are only