Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451,
the temperature at which paper
catches fire . . . .

Fahrenheit 451 is a social criticism that warns
against the danger of suppressing thought
through censorship.
 It uses the conventions of science fiction to
convey the message that oppressive
government, left unchecked, does irreparable
damage to society by curtailing the creativity
and freedom of its people.
 The “dystopia” motif, popular in science
fiction – that of a technocratic and totalitarian
society that demands order at the expense of
individual rights – is central to the novel.

Developed in the years immediately following
WWII, Fahrenheit 451 condemns not only the
anti-intellectualism of Nazi Germany, but
more immediately America in the early 1950’s
– the heyday of McCarthyism.
 Other works of social criticism, including
Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, were
published in the same time period.
 These works reveal a very real societal fear
that the US might evolve into an oppressive,
authoritarian society.
Science Fiction: What is it?

Science fiction is a form of fiction that deals
principally with the impact of actual or imagined
science upon society or individuals. If science
concerns itself with discovery, then science fiction
concerns itself with the consequences of discovery.
 It is a testament to the visionary nature of the form
that science fiction writers predicted the advent of
atomic weapons and sentient machines.
 Its enduring value, though, is in its capacity to ask
probing questions of each new scientific advance, to
conduct a dialogue with progress that decodes its
real meaning and reveals it to us.
 Isaac Asimov
asserts, “Modern science
fiction is the only form of literature that
consistently considers the nature of the
changes that face us, the possible
consequences, and the possible
solutions.” [Science fiction is] “…that
branch of literature which is concerned
with the impact of scientific advance
upon human beings.” (1952)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
(1953)
 Time:
the Future
 Place: a City in the U.S.A.
 This book is ablaze with the hope and
despair of a writer wanting humankind
to learn from its historical mistakes and
from the wisdom of its writers.
Imagine

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A world where everything is sped up, where bill
boards are five times bigger than ours because the
speed limit is so high, where everything you see from
a car is a blur, where pedestrians don’t exist.
A future populated by non-readers and non-thinkers,
people with no sense of their history, where a
totalitarian government has banned the written word.
This is more than just a story of dictatorial
censorship; it is a story that also draws parallels
between entertainment and addiction, between
individual avoidance of thinking and governmental
means of thought prevention.
 Set
in the twenty-fourth century,
Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy
Montag, a thirty-year-old fireman whose
job is to set fires, not put them out. He
and his colleagues burn books, which
are now considered contraband.
 Other major characters include Guy’s
wife Mildred, Guy’s seventeen-year-old
neighbor Clarisse McClellan, Guy’s
boss Beatty, and Guy’s friend Professor
Faber.
About the Author

Ray Bradbury was born in 1920 in Illinois,
and began reading science fiction at the age
of 8. By the age of 11, he was already writing
stories.
 What 3 short science fiction stories by
Bradbury did we read?

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
There Will Come Soft Rains
The Pedestrian
A Sound of Thunder
 Since
his career began, he has written
hundreds of short stories and a number
of novels, plays, and poems as well as
screenplays, musicals, and operas.
 These include Fahrenheit 451, which
was made into a motion picture in 1966,
and Something Wicked This Way
Comes, which became a popular
Disney feature film.
 He wrote for The Twilight Zone, Alfred
Hitchcock Presents, and his own
television show The Ray Bradbury
Theater.
Bradbury is often called the world’s greatest
science fiction writer, but many critics feel this
description does not do him justice.
 While his novels and stories bear the
trappings of science fiction, he is much more
than a teller of adventure tales set in the
future.
 Instead of emphasizing the wonders of future
technology, Bradbury seems to warn us
against becoming so worshipful of scientific
development that moral and aesthetic
concerns are sacrificed.
 His writing concerns the negative effects
technology might have on human beings and
on the history of mankind.


Fahrenheit 451 has sold millions of copies
and established itself as a literary classic.
 The Library of Congress recently designated
this best-known book of Bradbury’s as one of
the top 100 works of American literature.
 So many years after it first appeared on
bookshelves, Ray Bradbury’s cautionary
novel remains recommended reading in
classrooms across the country.
 It is even recommended reading for high
school students in the nation’s new Common
Core Standards for English and Language
Arts, which the Ohio Department of Education
has recently adopted.
Background

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Essential to an understanding of Fahrenheit 451 is an
understanding of America in 1953, the year the novel
was published.
In 1953 TV was just beginning to appear in average
American homes. The screens were small, the blackand-white pictures often distorted, and the choice of
programs limited to those broadcast by CBS, NBC,
and ABC. Still, Americans of every socio-economic
level fell in love with TV and managed to purchase
their own sets at an astounding rate.
The television quickly became the focal point of
millions of living rooms, while the popularity of radio
and movie theaters plummeted.
Ray Bradbury witnessed this phenomenon, and his
vision of how TV could eventually affect American life
became a fundamental theme of Fahrenheit 451.
Analysis

The world of Fahrenheit 451 is dominated by
television and other electronic devices.
Americans have lost interest in books and
therefore in any kind of independent thinking.
They are like zombies, controlled by a
repressive government that keeps them
ignorant of what is really happening in the
world by placating them with inane and
supposedly “happy” things to do.
But Wait . . . There’s More:
 Perhaps
the most amazing thing about
Fahrenheit 451 is that it was written in
1953, and many of the future
developments Bradbury envisioned now
exist. For example:

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Divorce and abortion are commonplace, and
many infants are sent off to day-care when they
are only a few months old.
One of our most popular presidents was a movie
star.
The suicide rate, especially among teenagers, is
growing, and more and more children are dying
because of car wrecks, gang wars, and drugs.
Except among those considered intellectual (and
therefore somewhat “weird”), there is a growing
addiction to TV, videos, electronic games, and
other types of mindless and violent “fun.”
Gossip mongering tabloids and sex magazines
that bare all are enjoyed by millions.
Censorship
 What
kinds of things are censored in
our society and who does so?
 Hitler ordered his armies to burn
countless books that went against Nazi
doctrine.
 Soviet Communists did the same and
more.
 What about our society?
Censorship Today

Religious groups
 Libraries (public and school)

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School boards
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e.g. Harry Potter books & movies
text books
school newspapers and yearbooks
TV/prime time (FCC)
 Radio (FCC)
 Publishing companies
Symbolism
Bradbury’s use of symbolism throughout the book
renders it moving and powerful and reinforces his
ideas of anti-censorship.
 Fire and burning are important symbols in Fahrenheit
451, as are salamander and phoenix.

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Books are burned physically and “ideas are burned from the
mind.”
A salamander is known to endure fire without getting burned.
It therefore is symbolic of Montag, who works with fire and
endures it.
A Phoenix is a multicolored bird from Arabian myth. At the
end of its 500-year existence, it perches on its nest and
sings until sunlight ignites its body. After the body is
consumed by fire, a worm emerges and develops into the
next Phoenix. This symbolizes both the rebirth after
destruction by fire and the cyclical nature of things. Firemen
wear the Phoenix on their uniforms and Beatty drives a
Phoenix car.
Foundation for Fahrenheit 451
 The
1950’s Political Environment
 McCarthyism
 The
1950’s General Timeline
 Censorship
Communism and National
Security: The Red Menace



Due to the U.S. conflict with the Soviet Union, antiCommunism moved to the ideological center of
American politics.
By the beginning of 1946, most of the nation’s
policymakers had come to view the Soviet Union as a
hostile power committed to a program of worldwide
expansion that only the United States was strong
enough to resist
What transformed the communist threat into a
national obsession was the involvement of the federal
government.

During the early years of the Cold War, the actions of the
federal government helped to forge and legitimize the anticommunist consensus that enabled most Americans to
condone or participate in the serious violations of civil
liberties that characterized the McCarthy era.
McCarthyism


Joseph McCarthy was a republican senator of
Wisconsin known for attracting headlines with his
charges of communist infiltration in American
organizations. His accusations were usually baseless
and ruined the careers of many distinguished
citizens.
McCarthyism’s main impact may well have been in
what was prevented: the social reforms that were
never adopted, the diplomatic initiatives that were not
pursued, the workers who were never unionized, the
books that were never written, and the movies that
were never filmed.

On the pretext of protecting the nation from communist
infiltration, federal agents attacked individual rights and
extended state power into movie studios, universities, labor
unions, and many other ostensibly independent nongovernmental institutions.
Black Listing: Careers were destroyed
by knowing the wrong person.

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McCarthyism was an effective form of political repression. The
punishments were primarily economic: in the McCarthy era,
roughly ten thousand people lost their jobs.
In the entertainment industry, the anti-communist firings and
subsequent blacklisting of men and women in show business
are well known. The movies had been a target of the anticommunist network since the late 1930’s, and in 1947, the
Hollywood Ten hearings precipitated the blacklist.
By 1951, the blacklist was in full operation. It spread from
writers and actors to the broadcast industry, musicians, radio,
and television.
When the blacklist lifted in the 1960’s, its former victims were
never able to fully resuscitate their careers.
Teachers, industrial workers, and lawyers were also affected
because of their affiliation with left-wing unions or their refusal to
cooperate with anti-communist investigators.
1950’s Timeline

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1950: President Truman approves production of the hydrogen
bomb.
1951: Television begins to be broadcast nationally, coast to
coast; the first nuclear test occurs at the Nevada Test Site;
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are convicted and sentenced to
death for passing information about atomic weapons to the
USSR.
1952: A second US nuclear weapons lab is established; the first
British atomic bomb is tested in Australia.
1953: Francis Crick and James Watson discover the double
helix of the DNA.
1954: The U.S. Supreme Court wrote in “Brown v. the Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas” that racial segregation in schools
is illegal; U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy begins a televised anticommunist “witch-hunt”; the first deliverable hydrogen bomb is
tested; the USA threatens to use the nuclear weapons to stop
Soviet aggression on Europe.

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1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a public bus in
Montgomery, Alabama; the Soviet Union successfully tested its
first true fusion device.
1956: Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby invent the microchip.
1957: The first British H-bomb exploded at Christmas Island; the
first underground nuclear test occurred at the Nevada Test Site;
Britain successfully tested its first thermonuclear bomb; fire
destroyed the core of a reactor at Britain’s Windscale nuclear
complex, sending clouds of radioactivity into the atmosphere;
Britain and France each become a nuclear power; TV viewing
expands rapidly with the introduction of Cable television;
extensive work begins on the Federal Highway system (45,000
miles of interstate highways and 2,906 miles from New York City
to San Francisco via I-80); the Soviet Union launches the
Sputnik, the first artificial satellite
1958: the first US Polaris capable nuclear missile submarine
enters into service; the first domestic jet-airline passenger
service is begun by National Airlines between New York and
Miami; European democracies of Italy, Germany, Belgium,
Holland, and France found the European Union.
1959: Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states.
Censorship
Constitution: First Amendment –
Religion and Expression
 U.S.
 Congress
shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; of abridging the
freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
right of the people to peaceably assemble,
and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances.
Censorship

As long as humans have sought to
communicate, others have sought to prevent
them. Every day, some government or other
group tries to restrict or control what can be
said, written, sung, or broadcast. Almost
every idea ever thought has proved
objectionable to someone, and almost
everyone has sometimes felt the world would
be a better place if only “so and so” would go
away.
Censorship in Fahrenheit 451

Censorship is a key theme in Fahrenheit 451.


Books are burned because they trigger thought
and discontent, two things which are unwelcome
in this “happiness oriented” society.
What’s unexpected is that it seems to have
originated with the people, not with the
government’s desire to control. People were
unhappy and discontented, so the government
acted to remove the sources of their unhappiness
and to enhance their lives with activities which
would prevent them from thinking and, thus, being
unhappy.
Banned and Challenged Books
 A challenge
is an attempt to remove or
restrict materials, based upon the
objections of a person or group.
 A banning is the removal of those
materials.
 Challenges
and bannings do not simply
involve a person expressing a point of
view; rather, they are an attempt to remove
material from the curriculum or library,
thereby restricting the access of others.
Challenged and Banned Books

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
 By Mark Twain 1883
Anne Frank: The Story of a Young Girl
 By Anne Frank 1967
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
 By Judy Blume 1970
Beloved
 By Toni Morrison 1987
Brave New World
 By Aldous Huxley 1932
Catcher in the Rye
 By J.D. Salinger 1951
The Color Purple
 By Alice Walker 1982
Fahrenheit 451
 By Ray Bradbury 1953
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Harry Potter
 By J.K. Rowling 197
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
 By Maya Angelou 1970
Lord of the Flies
 By William Golding 1954
Moby Dick
 By Herman Melville 1939
Native Son
 By Richard Wright 1940
A Raisin the Sun
 By L. Hansberry 1959
Slaughterhouse-Five
 By Kurt Vonnegut 1969
To Kill a Mockingbird
 By Harper Lee 1960
Censorship, cont.
 Books,
especially public and school
books and library books, are among the
most visible targets of censorship.
However, they are not the only target of
would-be censors.
 Free expression is constantly
challenged in the arts, in broadcast
media, and on the Internet.
Fahrenheit 451:
A Dystopian Novel

Utopia: a place, state, or condition that is
ideally perfect in respect of politics, laws,
customs, and conditions
 Dystopia: a futuristic, imagined universe in
which oppressive societal control and the
illusion of a perfect society are maintained
through corporate, bureaucratic,
technological, moral, or totalitarian control.

Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case
scenario, make a criticism about a current trend,
societal norm, or political system.
Characteristics of a Dystopian Society

Propaganda is used to control the citizens of society.
 Information, independent thought, and freedom are
restricted.
 A figurehead or concept is worshipped by the citizens
of the society.
 Citizens are perceived to be under constant
surveillance.
 Citizens have a fear of the outside world.
 Citizens live in a dehumanized state.
 The natural world is banished and distrusted.
 Citizens conform to uniform expectations.
Individuality and dissent are bad.
 The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world.
Types of Dystopian Controls

Most dystopian works present a world in which
oppressive societal control and the illusion of a
perfect society are maintained through one or more
of the following types of controls:

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Corporate control: corporations control society through
products, advertising, and/or the media (e.g.: Minority
Report).
Bureaucratic control: mindless bureaucracy controls society
through a tangle of red tape, relentless regulations, and
incompetent government officials.
Technological control: technology controls society through
computers, robots, and/or scientific means (e.g.: The Matrix,
The Terminator, I, Robot).
Philosophical/Religious Control: ideology controls society
through a dictatorship or theocratic government.
The Dystopian Protagonist:

Often feels trapped and is struggling to
escape.
 Questions the existing social and political
systems.
 Believes or feels that something is terribly
wrong with the society in which he or she
lives.
 Helps the audience recognize the negative
aspects of the dystopian world through his or
her perspective.
One Final Thought . . .

The problem with dystopias and other
cautionary forms is that their exaggeration
can cause us to become complacent because
things just aren’t as bad as the novels
predicted. However, as long as we read them
thoughtfully, understanding that they are
meant to point us toward problems rather
than accurately foretelling the future, they can
still inspire us to work for a world which, if not
utopian, is a lot better than our worst
nightmares.