Ray Bradbury
And Fahrenheit 451
Words of Wisdom from Bradbury
• “There are worse crimes
than burning books. One of
them is not reading them” Ray Bradbury
Journal: What does the following
mean to you?
• “You don’t have to burn books to
destroy a culture. Just get people to
stop reading them” –Ray Bradbury
History of Ray Bradbury
• Born in Waukegan, IL on August 22,
1920
• Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by many
historical aspects…especially…
– Stalin and his successors who burned
“questionable” books and killed or
imprisoned the authors
– Hitler and the Nazi’s who burned books by
Jews or “questionable” authors
Nazi book burnings
Bradbury interview…
• When asked why people should read books,
Bradbury responded with: “Because we are
trying to solve the muster of our loves, no
matter what kind you have. Quite often
there’s an end to it and you have to find a new
love. We move from novel to novel.”
• What does this mean to you?
What do you think?
• What is censorship?
• Is censorship a “good” or “bad”
idea? Can it be both? Why or
why not?
The idea of CENSORSHIP:
• Defined as: suppression of speech or other
public communication which may be considered
objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or
inconvenient to the general body of people as
determined by a government, media outlet, or
other controlling body.
• Books
• Music
• Education
• News
Censored books
• The Grapes of Wrath: for its “negative”
portrayal of rural people
• To Kill a Mockingbird: racial slurs and
occasional swear words
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: alleged
racial content
• Catcher in the Rye: profanity, events like
prostitution, depression and alienation
• Ironically, Fahrenheit 451 has also be censored
Discussion Questions
• What does the following mean to you?
• Do you agree with it? In what context?
Why or why not?
•
•
•
•
•
1.censorship
2. morality
3. dictatorship,
4. freedom of speech
5. consequences
Now…
• Come up with your OWN question and write it
on a piece of paper-one that deals with any of
the words that we just discussed
Fahrenheit 451 overview
• Guy Montag lives in a world (a futuristic
America) in which he is a fireman. He is a book
burner, in which he is responsible for burning
books in a society in which reading or keeping
books is not allowed.
• Fahrenheit 451 is “the temperature at which
book paper catches fire and burns”
Themes/Symbols and Imagery
• 1)
The Idea of Censorship
• 2) Knowledge vs. Ignorance
• 3) Utopia vs. Dystopia
• 4) Animals and Nature
Short Stories
• Let’s first look at two short
stories, The Veldt and Harrison
Bergeron- annotate for the idea
and concepts of censorship,
knowledge vs. ignorance and
utopia vs. dystopia