“It was a pleasure to burn.” (Bradbury 3) is the iconic, disturbing, strange opening line of Fahrenheit 451. Many ideas are expressed within the pages of Fahrenheit 451. Many controversies, as well as many thought-provoking prompts. These controversies, ideas, and prompts range in topics from censorship to societies and how they grow, and from happiness to individualistic thoughts. Although wonderful, Fahrenheit 451 is no doubt controversial on these subjects; albeit dystopian. Censorship, whether it is known or not, is beneficial to almost all societies. One reason for censorship to be valid is to protect detrimental-to-the-society ideas from infiltrating the minds of vulnerable commoners, or teenagers who would love to take a dare. Another would be to protect the freedom of speech- whenever a hate-speech is expressed, its goal is to shut down a “good” speech. Sometimes, hate-speech even causes blatant harm to people, which is to be stopped. A final reason that censorship is beneficial is that with children, many are not developmentally ready to hear or read obscene words or to see or read graphic scenes. Fahrenheit 451 censors books, because books “make everyone unhappy with …show more content…
In fact, I do not believe it is possible for a society to stop growing, even while being expressed with strict borders. Even then, there was constant growth and development within its strict borders. However small, it was still present. Montag began to grow once Clarisse reached out to him and opened his eyes. Clarisse truly made an impact on Montag- so much that he became a fireman turned rebel. Societal growth is beneficial in that it seeks to ensure that everyone is able to interact with one another or with “things” normally and at their own pace. Societal growth within Fahrenheit 451 is entirely suppressed and washed out. Everyone is medicated. Everyone is meant to be the same, and to have the same, unimportant