Fahrenheit 451 Theme Essay
Has anyone ever broken a rule because they want to see why it’s against the rules? Has this censorship of something ever resulted in violence? The answer is yes, both in the real world and works of fiction. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is, at the most basic level, a book about burning books. People do this because it’s against the law to read certain books, but there are some people who still read them. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury says that censorship can lead to violent responses.
In part one of Fahrenheit 451, Montag, Beatty and some other firemen go to an old woman’s home. When they arrive, they find enough books to fill a library. They start to burn the books and try to persuade the woman to leave her home to be arrested. She exits onto the porch and burns herself. “The woman on the porch reached out with contempt to them all and struck the kitchen match against the railing.” (40). The woman kills herself, the way the firemen burn the books. The woman could be acting as a symbol, saying
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The Hound is mentioned in multiple parts of the book, and is described as alive but not alive. It is used to hunt down people that have broken the law. The Hound kills people and animals, Sometimes just because they’re there. For example, when a man used the Hound to commit suicide, or how the Hound kills rats and cats. The Hound is also used as a warning to Montag. It can be heard in the night from Montag’s window, and he considers opening it. But he probably knew that if he did, he would be killed. Also, when Mildred and Montag are reading the books, the Hound sniffs in front of their door. The Hound could be seen as a symbol of everything brutal the government has done, since it’s used to kill people that have broken the law. This law, of course, is the law of owning or reading books, which were censored possibly to prevent society of gaining knowledge of other countries and