Fahrenheit 451 Literary Analysis
“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings” is an empowering quote by the poet Heinrich Heine that directly relates to Fahrenheit 451. When books are burned or prohibited, knowledge and the freedom of thought are destroyed, which shatters the human spirit. In the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451 the government burns books and all literary material to please and control the public. In Chapter 1, Captain Beatty, the fire chief, explains that the whole process of the government burning books and reducing intellectuals to control the populous gained momentum when books started becoming shorter and shorter. Eventually books were replaced by “fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column,
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Leaders let the people feel that they are safe and that anything intellectual or unique jeopardizes that security. One way the government keeps the population controllable is censorship, or making laws to ban books and literary materials. Clarisse, the precocious girl next door, asks Guy Montag, the protagonist, if he reads any of the books before he burns them, he laughs and says, “That’s against the law!” (Bradbury 5). Opposition to policy is removed by burning the books along with anyone that refuses to have them burned to keep the population fearful. Another way that they keep power is by "hiding the nails". On page 58, during Captain Beatty’s speech, he says to Montag, “If you don’t want a house built, hide the nails and wood." If books are burned, there will not be an educated population capable of rebelling against the government. Finally, they hold control by feigning totalitarian infallibility, or tricking the population and luring them into a sense that the government never fails in achieving a goal. Towards the end of Chapter 3, when the government is chasing “Montag”, they know that they have lost the real Montag. To maintain the image of infallibility they stage a fake killing of an innocent man, and in doing so they reinforce the illusion that no one can escape the
Leaders let the people feel that they are safe and that anything intellectual or unique jeopardizes that security. One way the government keeps the population controllable is censorship, or making laws to ban books and literary materials. Clarisse, the precocious girl next door, asks Guy Montag, the protagonist, if he reads any of the books before he burns them, he laughs and says, “That’s against the law!” (Bradbury 5). Opposition to policy is removed by burning the books along with anyone that refuses to have them burned to keep the population fearful. Another way that they keep power is by "hiding the nails". On page 58, during Captain Beatty’s speech, he says to Montag, “If you don’t want a house built, hide the nails and wood." If books are burned, there will not be an educated population capable of rebelling against the government. Finally, they hold control by feigning totalitarian infallibility, or tricking the population and luring them into a sense that the government never fails in achieving a goal. Towards the end of Chapter 3, when the government is chasing “Montag”, they know that they have lost the real Montag. To maintain the image of infallibility they stage a fake killing of an innocent man, and in doing so they reinforce the illusion that no one can escape the