Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

Utopia through Materials? Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about a materialistic society that has forgotten social interaction with each other. This materialistic society is where Bradbury believed society today is headed. The materialistic society in Fahrenheit 451 created through Bradbury’s cynic views of society. His views of society are over-exaggerated in contrast with today’s events, especially in the areas of censorship and media mediocrity. The purpose of media is quite simple, it is as Carl Jensen describes it, “a warning signal--information--that alerts the citizens that something is wrong which needs attention and resolution. An aware and informed populace could then influence its leaders to
Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right? Haven’t you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of
Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.’” (Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, p. 59) Beatty reiterates the need to keep people happy through censorship, which is censorship’s main goal. The futuristic society takes the conventional route to censorship by banning books, or better yet by throwing it into the incinerator. Although both societies try to achieve utopia through the use of censorship, their methods differ tremendously. The futuristic society in Fahrenheit 451 censors by taking out what is offensive; whereas society today puts in what is lacking in society, and therefore is able to make society much more