Similarities Between The Book Thief And Fahrenheit 451

Books can be good just as well as bad. On one hand, books can be liberating by setting the reader free from the lies, they’ve been told. On the other hand, books can become a burden. Meaning, learning the truth can change your perception of things and make you question who you really are and what you believe. In some cases, books can reveal the truth. In other cases, books can be used to educate the wrong things. It’s all about point of view and perception. In both books, The Book Thief and Fahrenheit 451, the government controls which information is released to the public. The overall theme of both books is power of words. The role of books in each of these novels helps support the theme of power of words. There are many similarities

In both novels, books are burned to prevent people from knowing the truth about their society; which allows the government to feed them false propaganda and control what knowledge they have. For example, in Fahrenheit 451, they’re not allowed to read books, so they receive their information from “Seashell Radio.” In this quote, Mildred is listening to the radio and is hearing what she believes is the truth, “And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind,” (Bradbury 42). In The Book Thief, the Nazis would burn books written by Jewish authors and basically any story involving a Jewish protagonist. They did this so that the public would see Jews as the Nazis wanted them to. In this quote, it talks about what people’s reactions to book burnings were like, “To their left, flames and burning books were cheered like heroes,” (Zusak 113). In both novels, books are burned to protect the government’s

In The Book Thief the role of books was to control people. Hitler ordered the Nazis to burn the books that were against his beliefs and to replace them with Anti-Jewish propaganda. He used books to control people’s thoughts and actions, by only giving them lies and hiding the truth. Max left Liesel a book and a message, “I thought of you and your books and words, and this strange story came into my head,” (Zusak 444). The book that Max left her explains how Hitler used words as a weapon, which can be found on pages 445 through page 450. In Fahrenheit 451, books are burned to limit people’s knowledge, feelings, and independence. The firemen burn books because the government doesn’t want people capable to think deeply. That’s explained to Guy by Captain Beatty in this quote, “You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred,” (Bradbury 89). The role of books in these two novels are similar but how they’re presented is