Censorship In Fahrenheit 451 And Brave New World

The novel Fahrenheit 451, is a work by Ray Bradbury categorized as dystopian literature. Dystopian literature, as defined by Questia.com, is a genre of fictional writing used to explore social and political structures in a dark world. There are many literary works that fit into the category of dystopian literature; William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are examples. The difference between these novels and Fahrenheit 451, however, lies in the nature of the political theme-censorship.
In Fahrenheit 451, the political theme is rooted in the political climate during the Cold War. The novel tells of firemen who, instead of fighting fires, start fires because their job is to burn books. One firemen becomes curious about

In 1934, twenty-five artist employees of the New Deal's Public Works of Art Project finished murals inside of Coit Tower in Chicago while a strike was happening right outside. Four of the artists were accused of creating artwork with “Communist tendencies” for their photos of left-wing newspapers and of Karl Marx’s book Das Capital (Atkins 33). These artists were just capturing relevant images, but the government was unhappy with their paintings due to their political messages. In 1940, The Relief Bill was created, but it excluded Communists and it included a loyalty oath for Federal Arts Project artists. When one artist named August Henkel refused to sign the loyalty oath, his Floyd Bennett Airport murals were destroyed (Atkins 33). This artist refused to agree to an oath that would inhibit his creativity and his art.
Another example of the American government censorship can be found in the Cold War era. In 1946, the State Department funded an exhibit of twenty contemporary and [mostly] abstract artists. In the next year, 1947, U.S. Representative Fred Busbey denounced it and claimed it was infiltrated by Communists. His views led to the withdrawal of the government’s funding for the exhibit. The censorship

In the novel, it was revealed that the government-issued books included a distorted American history. The government, because they wanted everyone to always be pleased and for there to be no conflict in the land, intervened through censorship. For example, when the main character, Guy Montag, was talking to his colleagues (Stoneman and Black) about if firefighters used to prevent fires instead of start them, they laughed.They pulled their rulebooks that also doubled as history books and read “Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies- First Fireman; Benjamin Franklin.” (Bradbury 16). Their history had been changed from the true history of firemen to the history the government wanted them to believe. “It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God! Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time…” (Bradbury 27). Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure were all causes of conflict in America. The government not only eliminated these things from the country, but also from the minds of the citizens. In this book, there were only a few citizens who knew the true history of the country, for the rest were brainwashed.
Another example of censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is when Montag’s fellow worker, Beatty, was telling him about books and the law. You know