“Since no one but you can know what's best for you, government control can't make your life better” (Browne). In 1950, communism was rising around the world. During this time, Joseph McCarthy accused a countless number of government officials of being communist spies. This event would eventually lead to the society in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Fear and government control are both complications that are within Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s speech and could give rise to the society and atmosphere in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Fear is present in both the book and the speech. In McCarthy’s speech, the fear of communism ruining mankind is present. “This religion of immoralism will more deeply wound and damage mankind than any conceivable economic or political system” (McCarthy 1). The fear of mankind being destroyed kept the whole population doing their job and made sure that they stayed loyal. This is what the government wanted. In Bradbury’s book, the fear of the mechanical hound materialized in every person. “I was just figuring, what does the Hound think about? It makes me cold” (Bradbury 25). The fear of the hound kept everybody in place. There was so little known regarding the menace and as a result, the people had a bigger fear of it. The government in the book felt this was needed to sustain society. There was also …show more content…
Fear is used in McCarthy’s speech to ensure that government officials loyal to the United states. Fear is also used by Bradbury to make sure that the citizens are in their place and doing their jobs. Government jurisdiction is used by McCarthy to keep the government from crumbling while it is used in Fahrenheit 451 to keep the population carefree. It is also used to stop the population from realizing that the world they are living in is a dystopia. The use of fear and government control to control society will be the downfall of
...that people can yet again fear that the communists might attack and send spies within to destroy their beloved country. Take the evidence from the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club when McCarthy stimulated the fear that Communism will spread and their spies will overthrow the democracy through traitorous means. Take the evidence of the Truman’s Response to McCarthy, Truman stated that the Kremlin must have put McCarthy there to cause turmoil and that must be a reason why he must have caused the country to go into a red scare. Take the evidence of the cartoon from Herb Block, which showed McCarthy drive his car into innocent people who had no influence of the communist and were scared by McCarthy’s ways of finding communists. McCarthy wanted to be well known and decided to start the red scare so that everyone else can fear and be aware of the communist everywhere.
As a counter product of this McCarthy intensified the Red Scare more and more. His ideals got through to the citizens creating more accusers and accusations. This only of course led to more and more fingers being pointed. The Red Scare was alive and well before McCarthyism but in the creation of McCarthy’s over the top actions he made it worse for the country as a whole, creating more and more fear inside the American
Control is the ability to command a person to do what another person wants. This plays throughout the book by Big Brother. Big Brother is used by the main party to control the citizens. He is supposed to keep the citizens in their place. The quote “Big Brother is watching you” represents this. It makes sure that the citizens don’t turn away from the party’s views. If a citizen went away from the party’s views, “Big Brother” would execute them. Another version of control is formed by the party. They are called the three truths. The three truths are, “War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength”. These laws are reminded to the citizens because it is up on the tallest building for everyone to see. Control can also be pushed through fear. Fear is a very good companion for control. Room 101 is the worst fear imaginable to the citizens. I shows through this quote " I 've got a wife and three children. The biggest of them isn 't six years old. You can take the whole lot of them and cut their throats in front of my eyes, and I 'll stand by and watch it. But not room 101!". The man is getting ready to face room 101 and would rather give up his wife and kids than to go in there. That is true fear. Control had a major role in throughout the story, whether fear was involved, or it was just pushed on
In Federalist 10 James Madison argued that while factions are inevitable, they might have interests adverse to the rights of other citizens. Madison’s solution was the implementation of a Democratic form of government. He felt that majority rule would not eliminate factions, but it would not allow them to be as powerful as they were. With majority rule this would force all parties affiliate and all social classes from the rich white to the poor minorities to work together and for everyone’s opinion and views to be heard.
To start, the novel Fahrenheit 451 describes the fictional futuristic world in which our main protagonist Guy Montag resides. Montag is a fireman, but not your typical fireman. In fact, firemen we see in our society are the ones, who risk their lives trying to extinguish fires; however, in the novel firemen are not such individuals, what our society think of firemen is unheard of by the citizens of this futuristic American country. Instead firemen burn books. They erase knowledge. They obliterate the books of thinkers, dreamers, and storytellers. They destroy books that often describe the deepest thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Great works such as Shakespeare and Plato, for example, are illegal and firemen work to eradicate them. In the society where Guy Montag lives, knowledge is erased and replaced with ignorance. This society also resembles our world, a world where ignorance is promoted, and should not be replacing knowledge. This novel was written by Ray Bradbury, He wrote other novels such as the Martian chronicles, the illustrated man, Dandelion wine, and something wicked this way comes, as well as hundreds of short stories, he also wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV. In this essay three arguments will be made to prove this point. First the government use firemen to get rid of books because they are afraid people will rebel, they use preventative measures like censorship to hide from the public the truth, the government promotes ignorance to make it easier for them to control their citizens. Because the government makes books illegal, they make people suppress feelings and also makes them miserable without them knowing.
Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, delivered The Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, in Oslo on December 10, 1986. He started his speech off by reciting the following prayer: "Barukh atah Adonai …shehekhyanu vekiymanu vehigianu lazman hazeh"—"Blessed be Thou…for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this day." Then, after his speech, the people thanked him for everything he had done to help humankind make peace. With a profound sense of humility, he accepted this honor.
The Fahrenheit 451: Audio Introduction has many interesting passages that supply the reader with essential knowledge about the novel. The Audio Introduction as a whole was filled with engaging facts about Ray Bradbury, writing style and how to the book can to be. One of the more striking passages was passage eight were Bradbury talk about how Faber came to be. This passage is so interesting because we not only hear more about Faber and what Bradbury wanted him to be but we also hear a little about Bradbury himself and how Faber is a portrayal of him. Another passage that was fascinating was passage six. Passage six talked about the world Bradbury lived in and how it shaped his writing. Bradbury also described how this world (that influenced
Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence on the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our Democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books.
Historically, fear has been used to control populations. For example, asearly as the 1700s, white men controlled black slaves through the fear of being killed. During slave days, in the South, the ratio was nine blacks to every white person (Nash and Graves 213). When Nat Turner, a black slave, finally revolted, the United States government responded by sending the army with tanks and guns to resist the black men. The reaction of the whites imbedded the fearof revolts within the slaves. The blacks could have successfully revolted, but were controlled by the fear of the powerful white man. The white man held the power and con...
e a world where books were banned and all words were censored. Freedom of speech has always been considered to be the most fundamental of the human rights. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury emphasizes the importance of freedom of speech by giving readers a glimpse of how the world would be if written works were prohibited. The novel is considered to be a classic because it can usually be linked to society. The novel’s relevance is connected to its themes and its overall message. The themes of loneliness, alienation, conformity, and paranoia play a crucial role in the novel by showing how censorship can transform society negatively.
... Fear makes people do things they normally would not. Because of fear, people overlook things they normally would notice immediately, especially in the case of something being moral or immoral. McCarthy was described as "paranoid" and for whom ".life was a series of conspiracies, the most fiendish of which were directed at him.
In 1932 Franklin. D Roosevelt stated “ Only Thing we have to Fear Is Fear itself”. This was a quote from a great leader. However, they’re different types of people called demagogues who control a herd using fear as their tool. Control through fear is used by and students in schools including Trinity in Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, and is even used by parents in real life.
The government can lead the world to being exuberant, or it can bring society into utter mayhem. In 1984 the government relies largely on brainwashing and totalitarian policies such as spies. Unlike the government in 1984, the government in Fahrenheit 451 keeps tabs on all those who deviate from the majority. They do not care much about the thoughts of rebellion, they instead use television to numb the minds of the population. Politics of The Party in 1984 have taken control of everything, making the whole population their minions. Both authors, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, involved war as a background, but they fundamentally differ from each other. Orwell’s concept of war is that of a tool for the perpetuation of scarcity and paranoia. On the other hand, in Bradbury’s case it is all-out total annihilation. Enfranchised will is extinguished by the falsification and change of history records, love being outlawed, and the invasion of privacy.
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 leads from an average beginning by introducing a new world for readers to become enveloped in, followed by the protagonist’s descent into not conforming to society’s rules, then the story spirals out of control and leaves readers speechless by the actions taken by the main character and the government of this society. This structure reinforces the author’s main point of how knowledge is a powerful entity that would force anyone to break censorship on a society.
...irony in McCarthy's approach is communist regimes use censorship as a primary tool in their government. Censorship is the first step to oppression and Bradbury, through "Usher II", reminds us that we need to fight censorship and those who try to impose it. There are still struggles with censorship everyday currently John Ashcroft is trying to censor a lot of the material that is used to teach students in public schools and colleges. It is important that we have stories like "Usher II" to help us realize that it isn't in our best interests to let someone else decide what is appropriate or inappropriate, decent or indecent, moral or immoral. The moral climate of a society needs to be determined by the people in the society.