Themes found in "Fahrenheit 451"

Themes found in "Fahrenheit 451"

• Censorship

Through censorship, the government controls what information is available for the public. At first, Montag doesn’t even care about this fact, and even promotes and burns books as his job and as his hobby. However, after the incident with the old woman and the burning house, Montag wonders about what makes this objects so valuable that a person gives her own life for it. The censorship policy was allegedly applied in order to keep everybody equal and to avoid any conflict between people, as the following quotation explains “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon."(p. 28).

https://derechosdigitales.org/8125/ecuador-copyright-weapon-censorship/

http://www.uniquehomeaccents.biz/scripts/maestros_old/images/censorship/

This themes had a negative effect on the reader, or at least in me, because it provokes frustration towards the fact that, to avoid any conflict or hurting minorities, the government affects intellectuals and people that can provide vital things or thoughts to the society, which produces the increase of ignorance and a appealing destruction of knowledge.

• Ignorance against Knowledge

Because of the high pressure of censorship towards the public, the society eventually stopped being interested about learning and reading, as the following fragment states "Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord". (p. 83). Because of this, and the fact that uneducated and ignorant minds are malleable, the ruling class found in “Fahrenheit 451” promoted ignorance in order that the people don give a second thought about things

https://steveamiller.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/knowledge-and-ignorance/

https://www.icr.org/article/2477/

This motif produces in the reader, a feeling of irritation and dissatisfaction because, after all the improvement the mankind had made, in order to keep the people calm and ignorant, they avoid critical thinking and learning more of what is the TV or the advertisements.