Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 was based on the topic of censorship. This novel was based on censorship in which the government puts a ban on books. This ban on books combined with the brainwashing through television the government has induced upon them leads people to believe that books are in fact wrong. People are led to believe that things said in books are false and they have no knowledgeable quality. Instead, citizens were "stuffed full" of facts so they felt intelligent and didn't need to read, as Beatty states late in the novel. People who were in possession of a book of any kind were forced to give up their books; they would be burned along with their house. Throughout the novel, the topic is displayed as the government continues to control citizens and punish them for a crime that has become so dangerously wrong. In such a restricted government, people such as Montag had to choose between books or burning them. I'm sure situations such as Montag's would have been common in such a world. Montag had problems with picking his destiny, being a book burner or a book lover as well as dealing with the broken marriage between himself and Mildred. This topic is fascinating and I'm sure most readers questioned the possibility of an event so serious happening in our time. Could it really be possible now? This topic had me asking myself this continuously throughout the novel.

"It was a pleasure to burn ... his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history" (1).

This quote is in the first passage of the novel Fahrenheit 451. Montag speaks of the pleasure it is to be a fireman and burn books. He feels as though he is a conductor, producing something beautiful while he is ironically destroying beauty to some. I find this quote significant because it shows how being a fireman for so long has led Montag to believe it is right; he is portraying this belief. Later in the novel he realizes just how much he hates what he has been doing all of his life; he cannot bear to be destroying others' books while he possesses some of his own. I like this quote because it shows the drastic transformation we see in Montag from the beginning to the end of the novel.



My initial thought on the novel was that the topic was a great one. I love reading about censorship upon others. I find it interesting to read about and try to process how such a thing can be happening. The censorship we see in Fahrenheit 451 is almost hard to believe. Controlling people so much that you choose the things they can do or not do, in this case banning the use and possession of books, seems so extreme. I could not imagine being told I could not read my favorite books anymore because I didn't need them and the things they said were wrong. I think I enjoyed the book so much because I could never live in a world without creativity and variety, and the thought of not having those is hard to bare.

While I loved the topic Fahrenheit 451 was based on, there were some elements of the novel that confused me. It took me so long to understand the concept of the "walls". Actually, I did not really understand the meaning of these until I read others' post on nicenet over the summer. Other concepts such as the relatives, the salamander, the hound, and others were hard for me to understand.

I also thought that in some ways the novel was very unrealistic. I do not understand how owning books was such a serious crime with such a harsh punishment. The government needed a better reason so that people could understand more why they couldn't have them. I would not follow the rules either if I was unsure of the government's motives. I couldn't believe a punishment such as burning down someone's house was entirely realistic either. Overall, Bradbury needed to produce a strong reasoning for the banning of books. Also, how did people keep books over so many years? Book supply had to run out over time unless their was illegal publishing going on. There is no way that people could still have books over such a long period of time. The firemen could not have found so many people with books over this time period either. I do understand that it was a Science Fiction novel, but some aspects seemed too far fetched to ignore, even for a fiction novel.

Overall, I really enjoyed Fahrenheit 451. It was a great, intriguing read. It had some confusing and unrealistic aspects, but I think the topic was awesome and a novel like this is so fun to read; I wanted to know what would happen next constantly.