The novel Fahrenheit 451 and the movie Equilibrium both fell under the genre of a ‘dystopian’, meaning they may have some similarities, additionally, they may also had some differences between them as well. Some similarities of these two stories can be in the traditional characteristics of a dystopia, the characteristics of the protagonist, a number of different dystopian controls on the society’s citizens, and the characteristics of the dystopia itself. Therefore, the question at hand is how these two dystopian stories are similar or differ in these categories.
One of the most crucial things to discuss when it comes to a dystopian story, is the actual characteristics of the dystopia itself. Fahrenheit 451 contains many of the classic characteristics of a dystopia. For one, the citizens of
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In a dystopia, there is often times a force that rules over every citizen, whether it be a corporation, bureaucracy, a technological control, etc. In Equilibrium, there is a very obvious bureaucratic control over society. Citizens are constantly under control and surveillance by the government and its workers who regulate rogue citizens and keeps society in a constant state of illusion. Fahrenheit 451’s society similarly regulates its citizens via bureaucratic control. In the society of Fahrenheit 451, individuality is essentially banned. This is regulated by fear and intimidation through objects like the mechanical hound by the government. The mechanical hound is a metal, mechanical dog that is designed to hunt down and kill fugitives and is often associated with death and as stated in the book “The mechanical hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse” (page 24). Again, Fahrenheit 451 and Equilibrium remain similar in another