Examples Of Destruction In Fahrenheit 451

Avoiding the Destruction of Society

People believe that times are pretty great today, but really are they? Our society is clearly headed down a dark and unforgiving path. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the author displays a possible society that is ultimately destroyed. This is a society where books are illegal, firefighters start fires, and people rarely spend time outside. The main character, a firefighter by the name of Guy Montag, starts to question what is in books to make them so powerful which leads him down a path that does not have a merciful ending. Fahrenheit 451 has many important lessons that readers can relate to our world today despite several key differences with the novel’s world. One of the most important lessons is

A good example of this is how all of the firefighters in the novel are all described to be the same: “Had he ever seen a fireman that didn’t have black hair, black brows, a fiery face, and a blue-steel shaved but unshaved look? These men were all mirror images of himself!” (Bradbury 33). All of the firefighters have a common look, and it makes society boring. There is no individuality in a group if everyone looks the same. Nobody walking down the street could pick out an individual from a group of firefighters, and creates a dull society. We are a society built on individuality, and encouraging people to look different. In the novel’s society individuality is discouraged, and nothing happens making people very boring: “’But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else’” (Bradbury 31). In this society, everyone not only looks very similar to one another, but also acts very similar. They

In Bradbury’s novel, nobody in the society knows about a war going on at the moment involving the people’s home country: “’How in the hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn’t someone want to talk about it! We’ve started and won two atomic wars since 1990!’” (Bradbury 73). Everyone in this society is shaded from all of the bad in the world, and it is destroying their society. The people have nothing to talk about because their life is all rainbows and unicorns, as they do not have anything bad happening to them. As soon as people are protected from everything bad in the world, they have nothing to stimulate conversation, and feel that nothing can happen to them. History has proven that once people feel comfortable, something bad is bound to happen. Also, every book that contains the slightest amount of controversy is banned. The firefighters are protecting this right and burning any book that is considered to be