Preview

Fahrenheit 451: Analysis of Society

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1088 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fahrenheit 451: Analysis of Society
“Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries of more." (Bradbury 61). Ray Bradbury shows how the government in the world of Fahrenheit 451 keeps its citizens 'happy', swaying them away from politics and negative things that they think might affect them in some way. "It was a pleasure to burn."(Bradbury 7). This is how Bradbury introduces Guy Guy and the life of a fireman, he describes what the job and life style of a fireman is and it is radically different from the firemen in today's culture. Rather than extinguish fires, they start them and burn forbidden books.
Censorship and unfairness are the largest focuses of Fahrenheit 451, and will be the main topic for the rest of this essay, but smaller elements like Bradbury's focus on how people disconnect themselves from reality and try to isolate and surround themselves with technology, similar to today's modernization and leap in technology with smart phones and computers. Bradbury's main focal point is on the censorship of a society and how people are oblivious to it. When Guy asks about the past purpose of firemen, but hit fellow firemen produce their copies of the rule books, that also have a brief history of American firemen which says "Established 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First fireman: Benjamin Franklin." (Bradbury 38). Beatty probably knows that the true history of firemen was once to put out fires rather than create them, but he chooses to let the other firemen, Stoneman and Black, handle Guy's sudden interest in history. The fireman's responsibility is to burn books, and therefore destroy knowledge. Through these actions, the firemen promote ignorance to maintain the sameness of society, which is the fundamental of censorship. Guy After befriending Clarisse, Guy finds himself unable to accept the status quo, believing life is more complete, true and satisfying when knowledge is welcomed into

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    According to Ray Bradbury in 2053 all the firefighters will be used to censor people from books. The author of Fahrenheit 451 shows situational irony in his writing of censorship in the future. The readers go into the book thinking that the main protagonist will be causing problems for the fire department when really the main character Guy Montag and his colleagues are the firefighters. Bradbury uses firefighters to destroy books, burn down the houses and arrest anyone who is caught with them. More irony is seen with Montag’s friend Clarisse McCellean when she asks Montag “Is it true that long ago firemen put fire out instead of going to start them” (8). “A major feature of dystopian novels is their didactic tone; they are written to warn readers against the contemporary cultural element that the author is criticizing” (Reid 40-41)…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is a book set in a dystopian future. It revolves around Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books, which are forbidden. After talking with Clarisse, a weird girl who lives nearby, he begins to question his life’s work. Why are books so bad? One thing leads to another, and Guy is suddenly takes dangerous steps to save what he once burned.…

    • 493 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, is about a futuristic United States where books that are made illegal are burned by fireman. The beginning of the book focuses on a firefighter named Guy Montag who questions his career as a fireman; but it seems clear that he finds no interest in literature and enjoys his job of burning books. There is a quote on the first page stating “The blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history”. (Page 3) This quote characterizes his pleasure of burning pages and pages of books and shows hatred towards…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The dynamic character, Guy Montag, from the novel Fahrenhe it 451, written by Ray Bradbury, shows by his actions that human society can easily become oppressive and regimented — unless it changes its tendency toward censorship. Montag starts out with the personality of being brainwashed by a corrupt society. The dynamic character is a fireman, and Bradbury chose to start the story with “It was a pleasure to burn” (1). Montag believes that by burning the books, he was purifying society. The society Montag lives in suppresses all intellectual curiosity; this explores the idea that at the start of the novel, Montag is a victim of an oppressive society. Once Montag meets Clarisse, he slowly starts to question the quality of his life and his role…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fahrenheit 451 was a futuristic novel written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950s. In this new society the government rules and citizens are expected to obey the rules. Guy Montag, the main character, is your average man: a firefighter who is living happily, or so he thought, with his wife, Mildred, and follows the rules set in place by the government. He was average until a girl, Clarisse, helped him understand the value of knowledge therefore, allowing him to see the truth of society. The characters of Mildred and Clarisse serve as foils to one another in Bradbury’s novel thus symbolizing the dark and isolated aspects of the dystopian society, via Mildred, versus the light and incorporated aspects of society via Clarisse both sparking a sense of curiosity in Montag.…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Imagine a world where everything has changed-- firemen start fires instead of putting them out, books are illegal, and TV dominates life. Imagine a world where family dynamics have changed, and society is about as twisted and delusional as possible. In Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury, this world becomes a reality. In this novel, the firemen start fires, not put them out, because they live in a world where television is life and the family dynamics and definition of social have changed quite a bit. In this world, a fireman named Montag changes his perspective on life after he meets a young girl named Clarisse, who teaches him the true value of life. In the wonderful book Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury creates a world where family dynamics…

    • 1661 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the novel Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury we see a world where books and knowledge is no more and where the destruction of all books is handled by Firefighters. Reading through the novel you are taken through the life of Guy Montag a Firefighter who has lost his hope on his profession and wants to find a meaningful way to live his life. Through a quest to find knowledge, going against his profession Montag starts preserving and reading books instead of burning them. This causes an immense amount of trouble for him causing him to have to flee the city to find refuge with a group of exiled professors who will in time give Montag a new outlook on books and knowledge. Fire is a major symbol and plays a major role in the way Montag…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Fahrenheit 451,” firefighters rush to homes and start fires, rather than prevent them. Ray Bradbury’s story depicts a futuristic society where fire has become the matter of a significant dispute. On one side, fire is seen as almost a cleansing tool used to purify the thoughts of ordinary citizens by protecting them from reading “dangerous” works of writing by burning all copies of forbidden books. The government tells its people that reading books would be terrible for the common good but truly know that allowing people to read books would lead to the people’s questioning of the government’s authority. From an opposite perspective, however, fire is a destructive tool used by the government to…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Understanding that fireman set fire instead of putting them out is difficult to comprehend. For instance, in Fahrenheit 451 setting fire to books is a dramatic interpretation which leads to dehumanization. Life of 1953 future was a society of deceit and lacked independence. It was a world without books to read. The author, Ray Bradbury, observed how technology has made people become less human and less capable of independent thought. It was also not normal for pedestrians to talk and have meaningful conversations. Guy Montag, “the fireman that turned sour”, meets Clarisse a curious, yet strange teenage girl that brightens his imagination to help him think and ponder about life. The phrase ,"Are you happy"(Bradbury 10) was the question that changes Montag's perspective on life and helps him to want to alter from book burning. Book burning could be beneficial for the good of technology, some may believe that technology helps with the advantage of medicine and education, however, it can destroy society's social life and how the world will become.…

    • 1316 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about a materialistic society that has forgotten social interaction with each other. This materialistic society is where Bradbury believed society today is headed. The materialistic society in Fahrenheit 451 created through Bradbury’s cynic views of society. His views of society are over-exaggerated in contrast with today’s events, especially in the areas of censorship and media mediocrity.…

    • 1232 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 features a fictional and futuristic firefighter named Guy Montag. As a firefighter, Montag does not put out fires. Instead, he starts them in order to burn books and, basically, knowledge to the human race. He does not have any second thoughts about his responsibility until he meets seventeen-year-old Clarisse McClellan. She reveals many wonders of the world to Montag and causes him to rethink what he is doing in burning books. After his talks with her, the society’s obedience to the law that bans knowledge, thinking, and creativity also increasingly distresses him. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows conformity in the futuristic America through schooling, leisure, and fright.…

    • 811 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Usually the first thing that comes to someone’s mind when they think of dystopia is the opposite of Utopia which means happy. Many people live in a world of modern dystopian tradition in that their country may be under communism, some type of cruelty, forced to believe a specific way, or just live in a strict world in general. In a dystopian world, such as Anthem, people are raised and must live by extremely harsh rules with forced beliefs and a world of forced happiness but overall internal unhappiness. Social commentary and Dystopia relate to each other in that a lot of people advertise dystopian societies or universal issues by using social commentary. A billboard of corporate funding companies with devil wings shoveling stacks of dollar bills in a pit of fire next to a anorexic sick child, a true example of social commentary advertising a dystopian issue. Fahrenheit 451, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, and American Oxygen, are all examples of how people use social commentary and style within advertisement.…

    • 1661 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fahrenheit 451 Society

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Society can change a person positively or negatively. In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, Mildred is the wife of the main character Guy Montag. The society in the novel has made Mildred self-centered, robotic, and unfeeling.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses character development to support the theme of the importance of knowledge versus ignorance of knowledge. The knowledge books contain is ignored by society because of strict laws that prohibit people from reading books, and requires the burning of books. The law also influences people to ignore the knowledge contained in books with the hope of creating an equal society. Throughout the novel Guy Montag transforms through his interactions with others and self-realization to support the theme of the importance of knowledge versus ignorance of knowledge. He changes from a man who burns books, to one who enjoys and sees the value in them.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although many may strive to develop a utopian society, this ideal is only an unattainable dream that can never become reality; a wish that can never be brought to life. As many aim for this unrealistic ideal, many utopian societies first appear as is; a perfect society with a flawless government and harmonious people- at least on the surface. But when we are provided with a closer look at this supposed utopian society, it is revealed that, at some point in time, this society slowly began to spiral downwards. It would soon develop into a dystopian society where social values and standards have become greatly distorted and skewed. When applying the themes in this book to our current society, comparisons can be drawn in areas such as technology, social interactions and education in both societies.…

    • 1881 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays