Censorship In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel set in a communistic future, where censorship and conformity are norms amongst society. Firemen are paid to destroy books, to burn down houses, and to not put out fires. The novel follows the life of Guy Montag, a fireman who’s a product of society. When he meets Clarisse, the young girl next door, Montag begins questioning his conformity. Clarisse questions Montag’s society and preaches of a time before censorship. After witnessing a woman kill herself rather than be separated from her books, Montag steals some. Montag subjects his wife Mildred to books, when she’d rather sit in front of the television, with her “family”, all day. Montag, growing paranoid with his quest for knowledge, visits Faber, an old

The media is meant to symbolize a general departure from human interaction. When Montag tries to speak with his wife and requests for her to turn off her television she replies “That’s my family” (Bradbury 46). The lives of the citizens revolve around television and media. Mildred requests of Montag to use a third of his pay to install a fourth television wall, when they had recently installed a third (Bradbury 18). Mildred’s life revolves around her television walls. She takes part in skits with them where she’ll pretend to be interacting with them. By creating a culture obsessed with television Bradbury’s government was able to do whatever it wanted. It was able to create multiple atomic wars, without anyone caring. After Montag lost the Hounds while on the run, the media needed to appease its followers who wanted Montag to be arrested. “They [sniffed] for a scapegoat to end things with a bang” (Bradbury 141). The citizens didn’t mind who was punished, only that someone was. By using the media to create this dangerous culture, the government installed fear into its citizens. No citizen wants to be arrested or burned, therefore; they’ll do whatever they can to protect themselves, even if it involves hurting others. When Montag was on the run, the police called for everyone to unanimously step outside and search for Montag. No one cared if he was innocent or not, they all just cared it wasn’t them on the

Today’s society has an obsession with the media, to the length that the president of the United States will claim credible news outlets as “Fake news”. According to journalism.org, 57% of Americans receive their news from the television and 38% from the internet, as opposed to the 20% that receive their news from physical newspapers (Mitchell). The current societal obsession with the media is one predicated by many, and one that will continue