What Is The Role Of The Government In Fahrenheit 451

The dystopian American society presented in Fahrenheit 451 has an omnipotent government that inhibits the people through censorship and surveillance. When the book was written in the 1950s, spies, nuclear weapons, and new technology had just arouse from the Cold War and gave Americans an ominous and pessimistic perspective on their future. Throughout the opening pages, the government's absolute power allows them to manipulate reality and regulate the life of the populace. This adversely affects the life of the citizens and restricts their ability to think freely and be cognizant of the authoritative regime.

Fahrenheit 451 is a book by Ray Bradbury, written after World War II and it examines the corruption of technology in a dystopian society. This book explains how a dystopian society works and how people are so attached to television and cars and do not enjoy the natural world. People in a dystopian society are full of fear and sadness. They do not have equality or freedom, they are all so soaked up in technology that it is illegal for them to do simple stuff, such as, reading books. The book, Fahrenheit 451 explains how firefighters start fires rather than stopping them. A firefighter’s job is do burn books, since books are illegal to have because they go against the power of technology and modernization. In a dystopian society, people should be unhappy, unequal, violent, and brutalized and that is what is exactly being seen throughout this book. As Ray Bradbury captures the attention of many readers, he captures our attention on how the future could be if technology would become so extreme. Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451 is not about control, but it is a novel about how television destroys curiosity in reading literature.

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

Would you rather have awareness of the world around you or just be completely oblivious? In Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, you clearly don't have a choice. Bradbury uses figurative language, symbolism, and biblical references in the book to express Bradbury’s concern about how powerful governments manipulate citizens.

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses”(Malcom X). Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopia about the overuse of power and showing how society controls individuals. It talks about a story of power shifting between the society and an individual. Society controls individuals by limiting what people can see do or view, societal popularity, and fear of consequences.

“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” (Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart). This quote is showing exactly what the government in the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451 is doing wrong to the society. Written by Ray Bradbury in 1953, this book is set in the 24th century, where the population is controlled and books are illegal. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman in charge of burning any book that is found. The problem with the society, which relates to the quote above, is that the government has used censorship of knowledge and ideas to control the people; they did this in three major ways:

When there are large powers in society, it is often to find that individuals hold an insignificant amount of power against them. The society described by Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451, clearly demonstrates this idea as the larger powers at play hold supreme power over helpless individuals. Published in 1953 around times of the Cold war and McCarthyism, the novel reflects Ray Bradbury’s personal concerns towards individuality through the means of consumerism and conformity. In the novel, knowledge is known to cause individuality. Individuality allows people to think, to form their own opinions, beliefs and personal values which threatens governmental social and political structures. When we are introduced to individuals who attempt to disregard

One of the ways the society in 451 can be characterized is simply by how it is restrained by the government. The society in 451 is controlled by the government through limiting the rights of its people by law. This can be seen when the novel says, “ ‘do you ever read any of the book you burn’ He laughed. ‘That’s against the law!’ “(pg. 5). This quote proves that the law takes away the right of freedom of press; therefore, it restricts the rights of the people. This example also shows the controlling nature of the government, and the way that it restricts

The process of getting rid of books also keeps people unaware of the horrible, humdrum, bleak lives they lead, and the horrendous world they live in. Although this is provided that nobody tries to hide or smuggle books into the country and then try to infect others with their ideas that, by the standards of Fahrenheit 451’s world would be caustic and unacceptable.

The craving for total power is shared by many, yet attained by few. One who manages to form a government which controls everything is commendable and godlike. Such governments control almost every aspect of your life, like the one in Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451”. The totalitarian government in the book censors any unapproved media. Main victim of this ban are the books. In order to maintain “happiness” every book is banned so that politically incorrect messages are not available to the public and neither are deep emotional books. Of course if a rule is made someone is needed to enforce it, for this the government has its firemen. These notorious men burn any homes which are suspected of having books and arrest the residents

Ray Bradbury once said, “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” Knowledge is power, and those who yearn for absolute power will execute anything to suppress the knowledge of those they try to control. In the book, Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury enforces this by showing the lengths society will attempt to reach the objective of eliminating the people’s knowledge. The positive impact of literature often goes farther unnoticed the longer time goes on. Fahrenheit 451 presents many parallels to our current society. Bradbury’s predictions of the future are heavily mirrored in reality.Censorship is common, and in a few forms, it is generally accepted. Lack of

Fahrenheit 451 is intended to deliver a message which makes an important control point. For example, Guy Montag a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s mentality, firemen start fires wherever there is a book, and not putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, books do not have a meaning for them. Instead, they watch unnecessary amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears. The mentality created in this society was controlled by the government. Controlling society by demanding people what to think, instead of letting people think for themselves is not a fair encouragement, it is repressiveness to their own views, ideas and initiatives. Taking away the freedom of having personal

In society, whether ancient or modern-day, governments always ask themselves the question on how they should convince their citizens to follow their orders. Nowadays, pleasing the populace and being respectful to their wishes is a common practice among many Western governments. However in the past, there have been many experiments to find the most practical way to rule. Anarchy, authoritarianism, censorship and transparency are ideas that were thrown around during those experimental times. No way is correct, though there are methods are yield better results than some. In the end, it all comes down the execution of these ideas to gauge their effectiveness. Of course, practicing inhumane forms of government is considered wrong by today’s standard; so, many authors decide to write about different forms of governments, imagining how a certain practice will play out in society without harming actual humans. In the novels 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, the various ideas of governments controlling their citizens are heavily explored with 1984 suggesting control via censorship of materials and knowledge alongside absolute authority over their behaviours will lead to great success while Fahrenheit 451 demonstrating control through by blocking information and creating widespread ignorance among their citizens will lead to disastrous results.

Although, manipulation of one’s mind is one thing apparently is. Believe it or not, the government manipulates its citizens to their own liking. Media around the world has been manipulated and scripted to shift the emotions and opinions of the viewers. Terrorist attacks, political debates and even natural disasters have been scripted by news stations to instill fear and change public opinion. In 1984, Winston, the main protagonist of the story, had a job that required him to change the past to the benefit of the inner party, which is the government in the book. In present day society, the American government, for example, has lied to its people many times. One may include the Iranian and Islamic feuds with former U.S President Ronald Reagan, in which he stated, “We did not trade arms for hostages”, which later turned out to be false. The precedency of “we do not negotiate with terrorists” was broken, just to sway the public opinion towards Reagan’s Presidency. In today’s society, change is good, as long as it benefits

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