Fahrenheit 451 Allusion

The novel Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury, is a renowned and award winning piece of literature. The story takes place in an alternate timeline in which reading and being in the possession of books are both illegal. To protect these legal policies, firemen now do the exact opposite of what they do in today’s world. In this novel, firemen burn books. The title is an obvious allusion to this, as books burn at the temperature of 451° Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit 451 is a work of many themes, including issues such as censorship, government control, and oppression. However, one of the most prominent themes can be shown by the idea of, “although ignorance is bliss, intelligence is better.” The universe shown in the book is conservative, controlled, and ultimately dystopian. Citizens are controlled by fear, thus laws are almost self-enforced. "Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line.” (Bradbury 58). The younger, more ignorant characters rarely disobey the law, because it’s all they’ve ever known and have no desire the change. Characters such as the main character, Montag, is not an example of this whatsoever. As a fireman, he has the opportunity to “read the books he burns”. He sneaks books and novels out of every
The many characters represent some part of the dystopian society in which they live in. Some characters are ignorant drones, some are intelligent cowards, some are troubled, and some want to save to world. And common to any dystopian novel, the world is destroyed in the end in hopes of starting anew. Yet altogether, the controlling message of this famed novel is that although ignorance is bliss, intelligence is, and always will be,