What are some of the key ideas and messages presented in the novel,

What are some of the key ideas and messages presented in the novel,

Fahrenheit 451? Explain your answer with examples and quotations.

What are some of the key messages and ideas presented in the novella,

Fahrenheit 451? Explain your answer with detailed examples and

quotations.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian, science fiction novel,

which is written through the perspective of Bradbury’s protagonist,

Guy Montag. Fahrenheit 451 was initially published in 1953; however

it is set in the twenty fourth century in a conformist society, where

literature is illegal. Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury conveys

some very important messages and ideas. Among these are; censorship,

the influence of technology, individual choice and the role of the

individual in society, ruling by fear and totalitarianism, and the

evolution of society.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 forces us to envision a world that has

been so thoroughly censored that firemen, such as Guy Montag no longer

exist to fight fires (for all buildings are fireproof) but rather to

start them and take part in censorship. In this world individuality

and individual choice are lost. Appropriately named, Guy appeared

from the start to be just like any other firefighter. He found it “a

pleasure to burn (p.3)”, and followed the dictations of his leaders.

Eventually, however, Montag begins to realize that he lives in a

society that takes away the power of an individual to make choices and

to make a difference. Montag realizes that without being fully aware

of it, that in two minutes he was essentially destroying something

that took someone an entire lifetime to create.

Censorship is a significant theme in Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury, through

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...he loss of characters freedom to

read and to think was not an act that was forced on the people, but

rather one embraced by the people, either because they do not find the

content of literature appropriate or because technology makes takes

the place of literature. The terrifying resemblance that Bradbury’s

vision of the twenty fourth century bears to the world today only

further extends the possibility that some day our world might become

no different from the world which Guy Montag lived in. Bradbury

describes this world, “Every adjective that counted, every verb that

moved, every metaphor that weighed more than a mosquito- out! Every

simile that would have a sub-moron’s mouth twitch- gone! Any aside

that explained the two- bit philosophy of a first rate writer-

lost!....Every image that demanded so much as one instant’s attention-

shot dead.(Afterward)”