Fahrenheit 451 Response Essay

Talia Delperdang

Mrs. Sedgwick

Reader’s Response Timed Writing

1 February 2023

Fahrenheit 451 in our Current Society Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, shows readers an exaggerated future that seems unrealistic, however, there are many aspects in this novel that accurately represent our current society, or how it could look in the following years. Some of the main ways these ideas are expressed are through technology, social structure and norms, and censorship. The book focuses on how books are harmful instead of helpful for society because it provides them with opinions that could differ from one another. Beatty, Montag’s fire chief, tries to explain to Montag how, “’ We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution

In our world today, many classic books such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, and even the book Fahrenheit 451 have been banned due to their “offensive nature” or ideas that the government wished to censor. This is very similar to what Beatty explains to Montag about minority groups getting easily offended by some content in books. He says, ”‘Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book,’” (Bradbury 59). The people in the novel’s solution to minority groups taking offense is to destroy what causes the conflict. The main thing readers can learn from the book is to what extent people would go to avoid problems. Later in the book, Faber, Montag’s partner in crime, tries to explain why books are so hated. He tells Montag, “’ So now you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless,’” (Bradbury 83). Society has grown to only want to hear that everything is without problems. Therefore, censorship has skyrocketed because perfection is all that is wanting to be heard. A major way censorship is gone about is through technological