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Censorship In Fahrenheit 451

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Books are an unimportant evil that has only caused discord in society, at least that is the mentality of a future America dreamed up by Ray Bradbury. The novel Fahrenheit 451 is an incredible selection that begins with Guy Montag, a fireman; however, the fireman in this book are not like the ones today, they burn the houses of people who own books. In this dystopian society books are illegal. Fahrenheit 451 was written well before the advent of the internet, knowledge cannot be found anywhere else but in the dried pulp between two covers. Ray Bradbury uses the novel Fahrenheit 451 to demonstrate how censorship limits cognitive thought by withholding valuable information, exiling free-thinkers, and encouraging constant stimulation.
By burning …show more content…

Censorship effectively exiles people who do not wish to comply with it. The group of intellectual renegades towards the end of the novel created their own society in order to escape the restrictiveness of city life. One member states, “All we want to do is keep the knowledge… safe. We’re not out to incite or anger anyone yet. For if we are destroyed, the knowledge is dead, perhaps for good. We are model citizens… we walk the old tracks, we lie in the hills at night, and the city people let us be” (Bradbury 152). The academics of the new America are forced to live on the outside in order to have the kind of freedom they desire. In order to preserve books for future generations, they must separate themselves, so as not to be arrested for an arbitrary reason in order for the government to avoid the spread of knowledge. Moreover, pushing people out of society limits points of view, therefore limits people’s contact to new philosophy. People touch other people’s lives and when the odd one’s are forced out, their potential to touch others lives dies. Clarisse radically changed Montag’s over the span of a handful of conversations. She asked simple questions that got him to think, such as, “‘Are you happy?’” or simple wive’s tales (Bradbury 10). Through these harmless and innocent acts Clarisse made a huge impact on his life. Because of these encounters, Montag decided he was not satisfied and proceeded to radically change his life. Consequently, these exchanges set Montag on the path to becoming a vessel for knowledge. People are always needed to bring about change in others, putting everyone into a set box and kicking out those who do not fit in would stop the advancement of

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