Censorship In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a novel that can teach us a lot about our society, and how it is developing. A main issue that is addressed in the novel is censorship, something that affects Montag’s society in an unimaginable way. The frightening part about the novel, however, is that Bradbury’s fanciful warning is not too distant from our reality. In this novel, censorship is at an astronomical level, everything is censored, be it books, education, even talking is discouraged. Clarisse describes her experience with censorship by telling us about school by saying; “Oh, they don't miss me’ she said. ‘I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social

After all, the people did want it, all the condensing of information and disconnecting from each other, as described by Beatty on page 26 of the pdf; “ "Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.’ ‘Snap ending.’ Mildred nodded. ‘Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumour of a title to you, Mrs. Montag) whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: 'now at least you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbours.' Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.’ Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued "Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!" Granted, they could have done more to stop it, but they were just meeting the people’s demands. The flaws in this society started with the people, and it came back to bite them, without them even knowing it. They