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Envision a reality where people feared knowledge and would rather read books instead. A future is full of non-intellectuals that have no knowledge of their history, where all literature is banned by a totalitarian government. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury portrays a society that is forbidden from reading books that have been banned by the government to intentionally control their citizens from living differently. The citizens live their life focused only on entertainment, which is their form of communication and reality. The novel’s protagonist is a fireman, which means he burns book, and goes by the name of Guy Montag. At the beginning of the story, he meets a young girl, Clarisse, who is one of the last remainders of self-aware people in this society. The conversations he has with her set off unpreceded events causing Montag to rethink his place in this dystopian society, ultimately ending with Montag fighting against the firemen organization he was once part of. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury presents a futuristic dystopian society with people spending money on senseless entertainment and the government banning books, which was also feared by the people to establish the theme of censorship.
The beginning of censorship in this society wasn’t established by the government yet since the individuals allowed it. Beatty explains to Montag that people didn’t quit reading books since they were restricted. He told Montag “It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time’ (Bradbury 55). They quit reading gradually as the lifestyle around them became swifter, shallower, mentally duller, and revolved around minor surges and trivial pleasure. The individuals additionally ensured that censorship proceeded by revealing their neighbors for having books and perusing. When they went to burn Montag’s home, Beatty conceded that both Montag’s own wife and his neighbors reported him. Captain Beatty also told Montag that burning books is better for society. He says if ‘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? Bum the book” (Bradbury 57). Since any person can conceivably be aggravated by a subject, he contends that all books are better destroyed than permitted to actuate outrage. Beatty uses a case of the book connecting to tobacco and malignant growth. He exhibits the benefit of decimating information about lung harm keeps cigarette associations happy, yet we see the general wellbeing dangers as individuals will be less educated regarding what smoking can do. In “The Sieve and the Sand” Faber offers another point of view on why books are detested and dreaded. He told Montag, ‘So how do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless” (Bradbury 79). Faber says there is life present in books, and most people are uncomfortable with how truthful books can be. They are unable to handle the criticism which is why they stopped reading on their own accord. Even though the firefighters are the ones burning the books, society’s disdain towards books makes such censorship possible.
Considering how the majority of the population favored censorship, the government developed the firemen institution to completely eradicate literature from society. When Montag arrives at a scene to destroy a woman’s unlawful library, Montag is horrified to learn that she is home and resists from leaving her library of books. Captain Beatty and his men who are there to conceal her illegal library, tells the woman, ‘You know the law…Where’s your common sense? None of those books agree with each other. You’ve been locked up here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel. Snap out of it! The people in those books never lived. Come on now!’ (Bradbury 35). Not only does he makes reference to the censorship law, yet also gives the reader an understanding of his predisposition against writing, which fuels his passion for burning books. The firemen are the government’s weapon to censor literature. The firefighters look for books and capture any people possessing them. The authorities also burn confiscated books and destroy the homes of criminals. The censorship laws are also shown in this dystopian society when Captain Beatty tells Montag, “So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind” (Bradbury 56). By contrasting a book with a stacked firearm, Beatty stresses society’s perspective on books, which coincides with the government censorship policy. Along with the censorship of literature, the government uses media to distract citizens from the dire conditions of the state. When Montag asked Mrs.Phelps about her husband, she told him about her husband going to war and says, ‘In again out again Finnegan, the Army called Pete yesterday. He’ll be back next week. The Army said so. Quick war. Forty-eight hours they said, and everyone home. That’s what the Army said” (Bradbury 90). The government keeps people deluded by making war look normal and reassuring. While the nation is at war, civilians are living meaningless lives while being unaware of the actions happening to their country. The government uses mass media to entertain the population and keep them miss informed. Citizens remain docile and passively accept the conditions of the state through constant entertainment. The government uses censoring to suppress intellectual thought and discourse, which can present challenges to the administration.
Another censorship in Bradbury’s dystopian society is the consumer culture, which urges people to spend their cash on thoughtless amusement. People in this society only watched television and listened to the radio. “Without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look. His wife stretched on the bed… in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk” (Bradbury 10). This censorship in the novel recognizes the fact that technology has become more advanced and powerful and causes laziness in people. Mildred chooses to spend her time on the TV and radio rather than be with Montag. They live in a futuristic community that uses technology to control what they think and feel by controlling what they see and hear. One of the many entertainments from this society is the parlor walls. They are first mentioned when Montag meets Clarisse. Clarisse shares the fact that she is an atypical person in the society almost immediately but cements that fact by stating, “I rarely watch the ‘parlor walls’ or go to races or Fun Parks. So I’ve lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess” (Bradbury 7). The fact that Clarisse doesn’t watch TV like everyone else is something that allows her the time to think, which sets her apart from almost everyone else since they appear to be addicted to technology. After this encounter with Clarisse, Montag came home with his wife asking him to purchase the fourth parlor wall, despite the cost being a third of his yearly salary. Mildred didn’t seem to care that this would cause a problem for Montag because she is too addicted to technology. Montag has begun to think that the parlor walls and technology are separating people from each other, instead of bringing them closer together and facilitating happiness. Censorship cam about when people didn’t want to have thoughts introduced to them that might upset their happy nature which is why they turn to parlor walls, high-speed beetle cars, and technology overall.
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury conveys the theme of censorship through the people and the government controlling society where citizens alternately turn their attention to entertainment. In this dystopian society, people are in constant fear of their society. The people who do not fear the society are under the impression of it being the perfect society. People stopped reading so that everything could be done faster, they didn’t want criticism, and they didn’t speak out when they noticed the censorship happening. Although the government wanted to censor literature, it was the people who allowed that to happen. They were too hooked onto technology that it affected people and their daily lives such as Mildred who spends most of her time with the parlor walls. Censoring literature is the dystopian state’s way of suppressing intellectual thought and discourse, which can present challenges to the regime. They wanted to make people happy by preventing controversial authors from criticizing their superficial society. Bradbury presents us to a dystopian society that could be our future if we allow the addictive properties of technology to get to us. Our society could easily turn into this dystopian society if we neglect books as the people did.
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