Fahrenheit 451 Government Analysis

In today’s world, you have so much freedom, and are free to do whatever you want. However, in the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, there are not nearly the same freedoms. Guy Montag realizes throughout the novel that the government is more controlling than anyone thought, and in trying to fix his world he finds himself in a world of trouble. The author shows the theme of government control very early in the novel. The government is controlling the knowledge available to citizens. They do this by burning books. When they burn books, they are destroying the knowledge that can be gained by them. This is shown when the narrator states, “While the books went up in flames in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark

Another way the government controls people is by forcing them to have certain thoughts and ideas. One example that shows this in the book is when Montag stole a book from a fire and Mildred was petrified when Beatty (the fire chief) was at the door. “He’ll come in said Mildred and burn us and the books!” This shows that the government is controlling thoughts because they made Mildred believe that Beatty would burn their house even when he didn’t do anything wrong. Later Mildred turned herself in. This also shows that the government pressured her into turning in the book. The government is controlling by forcing thoughts and limiting knowledge. The last way the government is limiting freedom is through deceiving and lying to people. This is shown at the end of the book when Montag kills Beatty and goes on the run. He jumped into the river to throw off the government and found a guy named Granger. He was watching the chase, he told Montag “They’re faking you threw them off at the river and they can’t admit that you got away!” Montag got away but the government lied again to the people by killing a random person on the street in Montag’s