Hypocrisy In Fahrenheit 451

“Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said.” - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. On pages 51-58 of Fahrenheit 451, a character by the name of Captain Beatty has a nearly 1450 word long monologue providing exposition to the reader and the protagonist, Guy Montag. The speech tells the story of how the fireman started their profession, starting with the history of why they need to exist and their purpose in the world. It provides explanations for the way they act, why they chose to burn books, and why it is illegal to have them. In short it boils down to ‘A few people were unhappy about being less smart than others. A few other people were unhappy that books gave them ideas that counteracted their own, so the firemen were created to cater to their needs, no one would be smarter than another, or have different ideas than another person because they read books.”

However it ‘influenced opposing ideas’ to readers. The hypocrisy in this is that Fahrenheit 451 is told in a text format. Beatty states that as time went on, books got shorter, Cut down from hundreds of pages to a two minute review column in newspapers, then from that to a headline, then from that, simply just a bunch of pictures. They no longer held value in the world. Beatty also explains that books no longer focused on the real world; rather fantasy settings with unreal expectations. He states that books encouraged intelligence and school, but as not all people could afford college, it made them sad and angry about something they couldn’t help. In turn this caused conflict, which caused war and unhappiness in the people of the U.S.A. To keep the people happy, they banned