Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Brdbury

1468 Words3 Pages

Ray Bradbury was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and amongst other things an early achiever. Deciding at a young age he wanted to be an author, Ray started his career by selling newspapers on street corners. Becoming a fulltime author in 1943, Bradbury is most known for Fahrenheit 451 published ten years later. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel following the actions and thoughts of the protagonist, Guy Montag. In Montag’s world the distribution, buying, and owning books is illegal, if found with one the holder’s house will be burned down by the city’s firefighters. Despite being a firefighter himself, Guy feels remorse for burning down houses and wishes to find the answer to why books are banned. Authors are most likely to include specific actions and themes in their writing to convince the author it is a dystopia. These characteristics might include, using propaganda, information, independent thought and freedom are restricted, a worshipped concept/figurehead, constant surveillance, fear of the outside world, dehumanized state, distrusted natural world, uniform expectations, and illusions of a perfect Utopian world. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses propaganda, fear and constant surveillance to depict the theme books should not be censored because knowledge is power.
Propaganda is the information usually of a biased or misleading point of view, used to promote or publicize a specific political opinion. Bradbury is able to use this characteristic to his advantage in numerous scenes. Granger explains that the government must give the audience a strong ending. He states, “They’re faking. You threw them off at the fiver. They cannot admit it. They know they can hold their audience only so long. The...

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