Fahrenheit 451 Censorship Analysis

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury explores the theme of the effects of censorship through his characters, and their thoughts and reactions on the matter. The thing that is being censored are books, with Fahrenheit 451 taking place in an American city sometime in the future, focusing on a fireman, Guy Montag, whose brigade goes out on calls to burn buildings possessing books. His society is used to more ‘digested’ content in entertainment, as books often contained information deemed too controversial by some groups, who would protest to the point of the ban of all books, as said by one of the characters. This theme of the effects of censorship is important to Fahrenheit 451 because Bradbury’s portrayal of a future American city is mere decades away if our society continues in the direction that it is going, as today, some topics are difficult to discuss without opposition, and the most basic answer to that is to simply ban the discussion of such things. The

. . ‘We’re book burners too. We read the books, and burnt them, afraid they’d be found. . . . Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it. . . . All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need, intact and safe.’ (145)
With Granger’s statement, the feasibility of reintroducing books into society does not seem very far at all. Just like in real society, regardless of what is banned and what is not, there be secret groups formed to continue what they’re doing, but they may never know if they will contribute to a reformation of society. To begin the reformation in Fahrenheit 451, the group sets out on their journey, and Montag thinks to himself about the new world ahead of him:
We’ll go on that river. He looked at the old railroad tracks. Or we’ll go that way. Or we’ll walk on the highways now, and . . . We’ll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now