Hwan Seong Pak Kelli Karg Grade 9 English 17/12/14 Title: Subtitle Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury was published in 1953. The novel depicts a future society where books are devalued and firemen burn books. It is one of the representative dystopian fictions. Dystopian fictions are influenced by the authors’ personal experiences and thoughts. Ray Bradbury’s negative view on technology, book burnings, witch hunts, and censorship led him to writing his dystopian novel. To begin with, Ray Bradbury’s negative view on technology led to writing Fahrenheit 451. According to Cliffnotes (n.d.), Ray Bradbury lived through the golden age of television and radio. He saw people around him watching TVs, listening to radios and avoiding books. As …show more content…
In the book, firemen are manned with flamethrowers instead of fire extinguishers to burn books. People are brainwashed that books are dangerous and that they must be destroyed. Several book burning incidents in his lifetime had influenced Bradbury to plot the story in this way. According to Weller (2013), Bradbury wrote about the influence of Hitler’s and Stalin’s book burnings in a later introduction to Fahrenheit 451 which was published in 1966. This clearly shows that book burning was at the forefront of his mind when he wrote his novel. Plus, in an interview, he mentioned the book burnings in China, Germany and Russia. The book was published eight years after the World War II, not really far from the time when book-burnings were an important part of the national socialism in Germany(Interesting Literature, 2013). In the interview, he also talked about the book burnings in the McCarthy era. In that period, 30,000 books which were written by communist sympathizers or contained pro communist themes, were banned and removed from the shelves of public libraries. He was widely upset with this and said, “Anything that touches the library, touches me(YouTube, 2011).” Since he was self educated in the library, he had special feelings to it. This was the reason why Bradbury encompassed concerns about book burning in his …show more content…
In the book, citizens have no idea about what is “truly” happening around them because of their censoring government. The author warns people not to allow the government to take full control. This ties up to the McCarthy censorship. US senator, Joseph McCarthy, made unfair allegations and Bradbury wanted to indict this with his book. He condemned about the investigations on communists in Hollywood by the House Un-American Activities Committee(Weller, 2013). What is the meaning of Fahrenheit 451? It means Fahrenheit 451 focuses on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas. dystopian novel. He mentioned negative effect of technology on modern society, several irrational and absurd book burnings,false accusations against innocent people, and illegal censorship of free speech and free press