Censorship In Fahrenheit 451 Essay

“It was a pleasure to burn,”(3) that was the idea Ray Bradbury was trying to get across in the novel Fahrenheit 451. This novel takes place in the future, where governments only law is to burn books. In this novel, you will see how Bradbury explains the life of Guy Montag, a fireman who burns houses for a living. However one day he burns a house with a woman in who is willing to die for her books, this made Montag have the urge to steal a book. The stealing of the book is what lead him to believe society is lead by censorship. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury shows us a world in the future, in which free thought is controlled through censorship, which leads to an ignorant, insensitive, and non independent society.

In part one, “The Hearth and The Salamander”, Montag hasn’t really taken an interest in the books he’s burning. All he really knows is that he must burn every house

that has books in them, even if it's the wrong thing to do. One night after he gets off work and is walking home he notices a young girl by the name Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse eventually is the one who changes Montag's mind about books. Montag really realized that books weren’t all that bad when Mrs. Hudson, died in her house with her books. Unknowingly Mrs. Hudson made Montag more curious, so against government law, he stole one of the books from the house and started to read it. When Montag stole the book, he didn’t realize that he was starting a war. The books, caused problems with his wife Mildred, and he lost “friends” in the process. All because Montag stole one book, this caused more problems than he could count on his finger, and lead to actions nobody should take based on one single book.
In part one the main focus was the burning of books, and the fact that Montag stole a book, and confessed to his wife that he about six more books behind the vent. Once Mildred found out, they decided to read the books together. One day Montag went to visit Faber, his old friend who was once a college professor. Together they made a plan to undermine the government's system, and make copies of books. However they didn’t follow through with their plan because Montag's anger got in the way. One night Mildred had friends over and Montag confessed to her friends about having the books and he even quoted a poem from his stories. In their society books aren’t allowed, and like any good citizen Mildred and her friends called in an alarm, which lead to Mildred leaving, Montag burning his own house, and finally Montag murdering Beatty. This all happened because Montag's society is to ignorant, and to dependent on its government, if Mildred never told on her husband no such thing would happen.
All of the criminal activity Montag was involved in was based off an insensitive society.

When Mildred betrayed Montag, he was put into a position where he killed Beatty to survive, then ran away to Faber. Together Montag and Faber decided that it was best if Montag ran to the river and out on some of Faber's cloths and just laid low. Once Montag got to the river he changed his clothes and floated down the river until he spotted something. At first he was scared but once he realized that the people he was seeing weren’t bad he decided to trust them. Montag had found out that Granger, one of the men, was someone just like him, someone who found a book, remembered it and then went into hiding. In the novel, Granger compares a man to a phoenix because he says that in their society a man will be born, remember a book, then die remembering it, and that this process will never stop. In the end of the novel the men and Montag all watch as a nuclear bomb is dropped on the city. Overall we learn that censorship leads to their society into becoming ignorant, insensitive, and dependent on outside

control.
Montag's transformation in the novel embodies a major theme in the story because it shows us that his society had a lot of censorship type people, Beatty and Mildred, and that they are lead by the government even though it may be wrong. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury does shows us that a world in the future, in which free thought is controlled through censorship, can and might lead to an ignorant, insensitive, and non independent society. I can see that the story shows many of the people are lead by censorship and are dependent on their government that is only teaching the wrong ideas. However in the novel, Montag, Mrs. Hudson, and the other men figured out that their society is being lead by a bad government. Overall in this story we can see how Montag's society is largely lead by censorship.