Fahrenheit 451, By Ray Bradbury: Character Analysis

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, shows us a society where knowledge is no longer pursued. Instead, the people pursued leisure and preferred ignorance. Bradbury wrote this after World War II. He feared that people would be swallowed up by the idea that everyone had to be the same, not forced by the government, but willingly. Throughout the book, the main character, Montag, goes through a change of mind and fights against societal standards. Ray Bradbury uses his characters to show that a society filled with self-centered people who prefer ignorance over knowledge will end in destruction.
Guy Montag lives in a world where books are burned and curiosity is discouraged. In the beginning, he wasn’t anything special, just another guy with the same
In order for stability and peace, they’ve taken away individuality and technology. There are so many laws in place to control them and prevent any thought or curiosity. “But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention” (Rand 19). These types of laws are put into place to prevent citizens from thinking too much or becoming too curious. If they’re too curious, they might break away from the system that they have established and influence others to do the same. This can cause a chain reaction. However, they don’t want change, they fear change and anything different from their own usual routine. So, to protect their own fears, the higher ups use fear to manipulate others. In order to do so, they’ve taken a part of their language and emotion has been limited. Everything is decided for them and consequences will be handed out if you do not follow what they tell you to do. In a way, this does make their society stable, however, there’s little to no development which makes them much more vulnerable to disease. With how slow their technological development is, I doubt there’s much advancement in medicine. If one person were to catch a deadly and unknown illness, the whole city might be wiped