Cultural Events In Fahrenheit 451, By Ray Bradbury

The cultural event I chose was Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. The cultural events in the movie adapted from the novel, are not very different from the cultural issues we think are important today. The movie takes place in the post 1960’s future, where media and technology have overrun society, and books were made the enemy of social happiness. The movie depicts the repression of identities through the political control of information and the cultural regulation of free thought.

In one of the first scenes it shows the main character Montag and his fireman crew breaking into a mans home and hunting down every last book the man possessed, and eventually throwing every book into a fire. This shocked me until the movie continued and I began

As poet Heinrich Heine posited in his play entitled Almansor, “Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too” (Heine, 1821). Throughout our worlds’ history, books have been burned because of the content the books hold, and the power written narrative could have on people that influences and shapes behavior. From the early middle ages, to when Hitler was attempting to take over the world, thousands upon thousands of our worlds greatest writers words were lost in the flames. These books were often burned because they held information that didn’t coincide with what the rulers, at that time believed. By getting rid of these books, they had the means to form their people, into people they wanted them to be, giving governments complete control of thought and values. The same thing was happening in Fahrenheit 451. The government wanted complete control over their people, and did so using television. By burning the books it keeps the population ignorant and unable to create free thought, which could ultimately lead to a revolution. It wasn’t long after Montag was betrayed by his own wife, that he realized the errors of this life he was living and knew he must act quickly. Soon Montag finds, “ The Book People,” whose sole purposes are to memorize volumes of literature to prevent the government from taking anything more from them and the content of written ideas be lost