Censorship in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Essay Sample

📌Category: Books, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, Writers
📌Words: 979
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 16 April 2022

Censorship is like putting knowledge in prison for a life sentence. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, in Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, government control and censorship allow the government to influence society's minds and take away information and freedom. The government believes books contain offensive material, firefighters are obliged to burn all books and personal libraries. Guy Montag initially obeys the government's rules and censorship and keeps with them, however he eventually starts to examine his role in society and debates whether he should keep with the government rules in which he cuts ties with the government and disobeys their rules entirely.

Guy Montag is commanded as a firefighter to burn all books and personal libraries at the start of the novel in order to get rid of what the government considers to be offensive material. Guy is happy in the beginning of the story but has an internal confusion about the purpose of burning the books, “Are you happy?” (Bradbury 7). Montag takes some time to analyze his life and place in society. He knows there is something out there that he doesn't know about. Being oblivious to the world behind him makes him have an internal confusion about what's out there in the world apart from these books he is burning. Everyday Montag, unthinking and uncaring affects others. He enjoys the experience of burning the hidden collection of books; “it is a pleasure to burn”(Ray Bradbury 1). Guy feels that the books aren’t his real enemy, it's his fear of his expansion of his mind. He has the feeling that he is being faithful to the government because he is being helpful to the world getting rid of angering materials. It’s ironic because Guy Montag isn’t like a regular firefighter running into burning buildings to save people but instead he is burning down libraries and the books in this dystopian society. He continued to follow the government's directions as he was told, until he was told to think more about what the people in society were doing. The government saw education as a dangerous weapon and is being discriminatory against the people who are using the books for educational purposes.

However, as Guy develops throughout the story he starts to change and starts to question why the government makes firefighters burn books. He starts to view the government in a different way as he thinks about why people try to keep and cherish all the books, “You don’t stay for nothing” (48). Montag imagined why the old lady stayed and burned with her books. He realized that people wouldn’t just commit suicide if there wasn’t any meaning behind the books he was burning. Guy pictured that books must have something important if people are willing to burn with the books instead of living without the books. Guy has the realization that books have meaning behind them, “And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books'' (Bradbury 49). Montag rethinks what the books mean to people and he realized that each book has their own meaning and why the author has written the book, “there must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house;there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing” (48). For the first time in his life he thought about the people behind the books that he burns. Montag grasped a taste of what the owner of the books was feeling and had a sense that there were things beyond the cover of the books. He had realized how important books are to people and wanted to grab one to see why people would burn with the books. From this point on Guy realizes that books aren’t meaningless and expands his mind about books, he continues to shift his mind about novels being burned. 

Consequently, Guy continues to try to save books and keep them from getting burned. He thinks beyond the meaning behind the books, he starts to think about the people behind the books and why they wrote the books. Montag became sure of himself that he would stand against the government and completely disobey the government regulations. He no longer agrees with what the government is doing with all the books in society. In his mind he knows that being on the opposing side of the government, and his previous job, is helping the society instead of hurting it as he once was in the beginning of the novel. It took a lifetime for Montag to realize how the government was controlling their society’s minds, “It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down” (Bradbury 49). It took Montag his whole thirty years of being alive to come to the realization that books aren’t bad after all, “The book. Don’t tear it anymore” (84). Montag is trying to save one of the books that was getting torn apart. He was saving the page that was torn out and he kept it. Guy is showing that he wants to try his hardest to keep the book from getting burned and is opposing the government decisions. When Guy put his thoughts down and pictured what was happening in society,  he came to the conclusion that he was siding with the wrong people the whole time and he finally developed fully as a character.

Throughout the novel Montag had a great character development, he changed his mind throughout the novel about how government control is manipulating minds in society. Montag initially sided with the government and followed what they told him and to do. He eventually starts to question what he is doing with his life and starts to think about why books are so important to other people. Finally, Montag no longer sided with the government and tried to save the books from being burned as the government control is manipulating the minds of society. Montag thought he was being faithful and helping the society by getting rid of what he thought was hazardous material as his mind was manipulated by government control and censorship. However, he realized that the government was just trying to get rid of educational materials. As a result of him rethinking his life he now tried to save books.

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