...censor books, sites, any type of media, but what one can never censor is knowledge. One of the most important themes of Fahrenheit 451 consists of censorship. Although, Fahrenheit 451 consists of multiple themes, censorship plays an enormous role and is noted to be the most important theme. Censorship is to perfectly describe the book of Fahrenheit 451 because of all the things that are restricted in it. Much is censored/restricted in this book, including thoughts, freedom, knowledge and even rights. The society of Fahrenheit 451 is a society filled with arrogance, temerity and laziness. All these negatives are caused by the lack of freedom and the entirety of censorship mentioned throughout the book. In the world of Fahrenheit 451, firemen start fires rather than extinguishing them. People of this society do not think independently nor do they have meaningful conversations. They don’t even have an interest in reading books. In the beginning of the book...
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...English Finals Essay: Fahrenheit 451 Within the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451, books, knowledge, and literature were all banned or destroyed. This lead to the result of happiness of most of the community but, not to all of the people. One of those people that was against the idea of banning and destroying literature was Faber, an old retired english professor. In a discussion with Guy Montag the protagonist, he explains that there are 3 key things that was missing from the community of Fahrenheit of 451. Those 3 things are “quality information”, “leisure to digest it” and, “the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two”.These key “things” are extremely similar in importance toward both our...
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...Name Professor Class Date Fahrenheit 451 (word count: 1,426) The book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury conveys to the reader that censorship and technology can be a tool used by governments to restrict human freedoms supported by endless access to knowledge and intimate relationships. The message of the book is that censorship and technologies, without limit, will erode the nature of human freedoms experienced in a society that values access to knowledge, books, and deep thinking. The world within Fahrenheit 451 can be characterized by a population controlled by media and extreme levels of knowledge censorship. The media is the tool employed by the government and embraced by most citizens as a means of steering the group aimlessly through life; vicariously living out any lingering ambitions and motivations towards non-conformity through the characters inside the television. In an effort to stifle creative thinking, spiritual growth, resistance, and the human tendency towards a general thirst for knowledge, the government has issued legislation that makes books illegal. Books are considered a social evil due to their inherent ability to encourage individuals to question existing frameworks and think for themselves. Therefore, the society in the book lives in a world where history does not exist and the reality is constructed and delivered through the television. The book’s protagonist, Montag, represents an individual that makes a transition from a...
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...Corruption. It is the everlasting result that impacts a society due to a group of unsuitable people obtaining a position of authority, enforcing their beliefs onto the general public, taking total advantage of a nation. Reflecting its government, civilization is now corrupt as well; oppressed and stripped of their identities as individuals within the community. Regulations. This not only strips a population of their identity, but also steals the freedom of individuals to think independently. Society is now completely brainwashed and unable to realize their potential and ability to expand their views upon world around them. Survival. It is what’s left for mankind when all of civilization has come to an end in a downward spiral. The causes and...
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...In Fahrenheit 451 people were faced with the issue of having to be suppressed in thought and in mind. For many, they did not question these ideals, but rather went along passively. Although there were some that questioned the lack of their own natural human thought. Some had a need to think and feel. These people were known In Fahrenheit 451 as the book rebels, the people that thrived to think. They committed their very lives to the ideals of thought and creativity. They did this by memorizing works of literature, and by forming groups of thought. If I was to be a book rebel I would dedicate my life to the memorization of George Orwell’s “1984”. I would definitely preserve this book because its meaning extends to all people of all cultures. In my opinion no other work has better expressed the effects of a totalitarian government on people and society. It is of utmost importance to understand the ideals of this book to protect our own individual freedom. This book does not merely serve as an outlet for creativity and entertainment, but as a simulated warning of the hardships man must face, if he does not speak out and think for himself. I believe this book would be most valuable committed to memory especially to the people in the society of Fahrenheit 451. The book of “1984” would not only be the work I commit to memory if I were to be a book rebel. I would also recomend “1984” to moderm society in order to protect their own livelihood and that of there children’s...
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...“1984” A Book Worth Preseving In Fahrenheit 451 people were faced with the issue of having to be suppressed in thought and in mind. For many, they did not question these ideals, but rather went along passively. Although there were some that questioned the lack of their own natural human thought. Some had a need to think and feel. These people were known In Fahrenheit 451 as the book rebels, the people that thrived to think. They committed their very lives to the ideals of thought and creativity. They did this by memorizing works of literature, and by forming groups of thought. If I was to be a book rebel I would dedicate my life to the memorization of George Orwell’s “1984”. I would definitely preserve this book because its meaning extends to all people of all cultures. In my opinion no other work has better expressed the effects of a totalitarian government on people and society. It is of utmost importance to understand the ideals of this book to protect our own individual freedom. This book does not merely serve as an outlet for creativity and entertainment, but as a simulated warning of the hardships man must face, if he does not speak out and think for himself. I believe this book would be most valuable committed to memory especially to the people in the society of Fahrenheit 451. The book of “1984” would not only be the work I commit to memory if I were to be a book rebel. I would also recomend “1984” to moderm society in order to protect their own livelihood...
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...in Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, the people do not understand how to live or have survival skills. Although some argue that censorship can promote social cohesion by regulating harmful content, censorship can be detrimental to a society because it can prohibit people from exercising their right to free speech and limit the general public's access to knowledge. Censorship can prohibit people from their right to free speech. In a court ruling 1988, the judge ruled that the Hazelwood school district could heavily censor the school newspaper. Other school districts quickly followed, but then KSU tried to do the same, and KSU was quickly met with a lawsuit. “A full panel of...
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...Symbols or the act of symbolism is when select things are used to represent another. For example, a fire could represent a passion or love. Green in the novel The Great Gatsby symbolizes the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. It represents Gatsby's deep love to Daisy and his American Dream. Another example of symbolism is spirit in Copper Sun. Spirit seems to be used as a description of the underlying essence of someone, something that gives an individual his or her purpose. Spirit is that everlasting quality of a person that can still be present even after the individual is dead. It can also be broken when a person is still alive. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses symbols to display how something can be quickly overlooked as...
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... but through love, modesty, and self-satisfaction.” While happiness can be achieved through materialistic things, Benzadi, along with Ray Bradbury and Ayn Rand, agrees that not all things can bring true happiness to life. Similarly to Benzadi’s idea, the novels Fahrenheit 451 and the novella Anthem, by authors Bradbury and Rand, display that to reach a high level of satisfaction, one must have a desire for knowledge, freedom to express individuality, and a desire to belong. Once these are accomplished, true happiness can be achieved. The hunger for the unknown of knowledge often creates satisfaction through. For example, in...
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...William Shakespeare, voiced the truth about desired knowledge by saying that “ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven”. One must presume that Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451, learned from this. Ray Bradbury’s distopian novel shares a similar representations towards knowledge. In the novel the protagonist, Guy Montag, becomes aware of the fact that he is living in a world were knowledge and individuality is lost. People tolerate and abide by the rules and limitations specified by the government. There is nothing except for books in this society to cause people to wonder about how valuable and important knowledge and identity are. Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to search for books and burn them. Most of the people in Fahrenheit 451 are convinced that books are a waste of time and are useless. Montag also believes this up until a change of...
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...“Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents.”(Bradbury 89). In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the main idea centers around the importance of human connection. Bradbury stresses this idea by allowing fire to take away the idea of building relationships with others. In turn, the society begins to collapse and literally ends with the city in flames. He also illustrates how much the real world relates to the crumbling world in the novel through technology, their current events, and the way the people treat certain issues. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury through his use of literary terms exposes how literature saves society from its inevitable demise by revealing today’s society’s weaknesses, challenges readers to connect the dystopian society in the book to reality, and demonstrates how human connections give people a reason to live and love. Even when Bradbury was a child he was interested in literature. In the article “Ray Bradbury: Martian...
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...Fahrenheit 451-“ The temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns” (title page). In Fahrenheit 451, science fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote a novel about censorship and about governments taking away the rights of citizens. In several ways, Bradbury’s theme seems to describe the circumstances Americans have been living in since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In the novel, as well as in the film, Bradbury presents the reader with his viewpoints on censorship which provide a parallel perspective comparing how American citizens have lived prior to and after the 9/11 attacks. Bradbury’s novel begins with explicit details describing the burning of books. The opening is somewhat alarming because burning books is not what a normal person would consider to be the duty of a firefighter. The government has made it forbidden and unlawful to read books. As a reader, I could not help myself from thinking back to the times of Communism in the Soviet Union and Nazism in Hitler’s Germany. During the 1950s, in protest to Communism and Nazism, many of the same token books were being burned here in the US. In the film a symbolic relationship between black, evil, Communism, and death is painted by the firefighters jet-black hardened helmets and their jet black flameproof jackets. The color black seems to symbolize the coming of death. The firefighters wore all black uniforms and they rode on a very red box-like shaped vehicle filled with petrol. The red could symbolize...
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...RAY DOUGLAS BRADBURY He was an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. Although the genre of many of Ray Bradbury’s stories is fiction, he rejected being categorized as a science fiction author, claiming that the only story he has ever written that is a science fiction story is Fahrenheit 451. BIOGRAPHY Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois. He enjoyed a relatively idyllic childhood in Waukegan, which he later incorporated into several semi-autobiographical novels and short stories. Bradbury's life revolved around magic, magicians, circuses, and other such fantasies. He decided to become a writer at about age 12 or 13. He later said that he made this decision to "live forever" through his fiction. His first official pay as a writer came for contributing a joke to George Burns's Burns & Allen Show. In 1937, he became a member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, whose help enabled him to publish four issues of his own science-fiction fan magazine, or "fanzine," Futuria Fantasia. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. His formal education ended there because they had no money to send him to college due to the Depression. However, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942. He published his first short story in a fan magazine in 1938. Bradbury says that he learned to write by recalling his own experiences. Many...
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...individual’s personal freedom is severely restricted- the population must conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent are wicked concepts. There is usually a figurehead or a comparable concept that is worshipped by the populace. Citizens are perceived, whether they truly are or not, to be under constant surveillance by the authorities. There is also a strong sense of nationalism and citizens have a fear of the outside world and those that are outside their bubble. The society is generally stratified socially, economically, and politically causing a majority of inhabitants to live in a dehumanized state. For almost everyone except the protagonist, the society is a perfect utopian world. The melting away of this illusion is the journey a dystopian novel usually takes the reader. I can see these echoes of similarity between We and the many other great works of dystopian science-fiction such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and, for this discussion, Orwell‘s novel 1984. Both stories depict a post-apocalyptic world that has come into existence after a nuclear war has realigned the all of the previous geographic, political and social boundaries of the “old world”. Both stories are told by a government bureaucrat of sorts, living in a peculiar, yet glorious, futuristic society. Both describe an insipid world where the desire for consistency, social order, and reverence had crushed almost any reminisce of true humanity, individual freedom, or emotion. Consequently...
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...Fighting Words The power of your voice can change what others think and feel. But a world without freedom of expression would be a world without social change. This freedom of expression allows you to be who you are and not be ashamed to show the world. The question we must then ask ourselves is what if we were stripped away from the right to express ourselves? What would a society be like? Can our minds even fathom what life would be like? With freedom of expression we can express different things in different manners, although the way we express this may not come out the correct way. The freedom of expression can be deadly when it is used the wrong way. Many people feel like they can say whatever they want whenever they want. In return the government ends of happening to silence the people. The people are now keeping their thoughts and their feelings held captive on the inside of them. When this happens people tend to become alive but yet dead on the inside. They drown in their own thoughts and become depressed and opressed. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, depicts how a society has lacked the opportunity to express themselves. Mildred, a character in the novel is used to represent the people in this society as a whole. She shows how people without freedom of expression become so compressed by their own feelings that they become dead on the inside. There are so many people in their world that are like Mildred. “We get these cases nine or ten a night.’’says...
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