Theme Of Fahrenheit 451

The movie Fahrenheit 451 is set in a futuristic society that is a completely oral society. In this fictitious society the reading and owning of books has actually been made illegal and anyone accused of owning a book will be arrested before their house is searched, and any books found will be burned by firefighters for all their neighbors to see. In this film, there are several recurring themes that can be related to past philosophical teachings, as well as today’s increasingly self-centered society. These main themes to explore are; the censorship of society, perceived happiness versus true happiness, the value of life. Each of these themes are very similar to themes found in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and can also be found prevalent in

The government controls everything that the people see, hear and do. This may sound familiar to anyone who has read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. An allegory is a story that is told using symbolism that has a deeper meaning. In the Allegory of the Cave, several poisoners are kept chained in a cave with their heads held still while being forced to watch shadows of puppets that are cast from a fire behind a screen. These prisoners grow up thinking that these things are reality and it is the only reality they ever know, until one prisoner escapes and discovers the truth. The citizens in Fahrenheit 451 live in a figurative cave of censorship much like the actual cave that the prisoners lived in. They are prisoners to society’s ignorance and only see shadows of the truth through the media broadcasts and the so-called “interactive” television that everyone seems compelled to watch, this is their reality. A prime example of censorship is the schools in the film. Students do not work out of text books and there is no form of critical thinking, everything is simply rote memorization. The teachers of the school can be compared to the fire in the Allegory of the Cave that casts the shadow of the puppets, they are a tool of the

One may even go as far to say that the people in the film are not living, they are simply moving through each day from one day to the next. The people shown in the film, such as the firemen and Linda and her friends, who are completely conformed to the censored society are very shallow and do not care about anything except being popular and what the rest of society says about what is right or wrong. Montag is horrified that the old woman was allowed to be burned along with her books while the other firemen did not have any feelings about it whatsoever. Linda’s friends do not believe him that something like that would be “allowed” but showed no emotion about it. They nonchalantly talk about soldiers dying and feel no sorrow for the woman whose husband died. When talking about having babies one of Linda’s friends calls having babies reproducing and says that the only good thing about it is that the baby would look like you and that would be neat. In our society today people have become so desensitized to life and death that many people are in a way, just like Linda and her friends, only caring about their own lives and their own popularity. People are becoming increasingly self-centered in a society that encourages focus on the self, rarely reacting about sad or happy news except to pass it along as something to talk about. Most social media such as Facebook and Instagram are purposed for