Fahrenheit 451 And Anthem

The society that we have today is amplified in both Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Anthem by Ayn Rand. Both stories take our society and distort it until they have a dystopian society with an overbearing government. The people in these books lack education and and are forbidden from learning and asking questions. These books show the close relationship between government and education.In these books and in real life, an oppressive government leads to an uneducated society.

In both books there is a lack of education. In today’s society children go to school until they are eighteen and then they can go to college but in Fahrenheit 451 and Anthem children are educated for a shorter period of time and the quality of the education is horrible.

In Fahrenheit 451 a girl named clarisse is explaining what school is like to Montag, she says “But do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don’t” (Bradbury 29). Clarisse is saying that in school no one asks questions. The teacher just gives the students facts and has them memorize them. There is not actually learning. The school day consists of watching tv, playing sports, painting, and more sports. In the school schedule there is no math, or science, or English like there is today. Kids are not taught in Fahrenheit 451. They are crammed with facts to know but not to understand. In Anthem Equality talks about his time in school. He writes, “We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the teacher forbade it” (Rand 23). In school Equality was interested in science and he was eager to learn more than just what the school taught him. He would ask questions to try and gain knowledge but eventually the teachers realized he was different and smarter than everyone else and so he was not allowed to ask anymore questions. This just shows the the government did not want its people to have knowledge. In both books questioning things is frowned upon. Children are expected to take what is given to them and not question it or want to know anymore. Even from the start the government shapes the children to not expect knowledge and to not want it.
Once these children grow up if some of them do overcome the poor and demeaning education they got their quest for knowledge if blocked by the government.

In Fahrenheit 451 after Montag sees a woman set herself on fire and burn with her books, he tells his wife “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” (Bradbury 51). Montag does not understand why the women would have burned herself with the books. He is starting to see that maybe you can get something from books. But there is no way for Montag to see and prove or disprove if he can learn something from books because it is illegal to have a book. The government knows that there is knowledge in books but they continue burning books night after night and punishing the people who have them. Montag’s curiosity gets the best of him and he faces the same fate as the others did for trying to learn from the books. In Anthem Equality brought his newly invented light box to the council and said, “Let us bring new light to men! (Rand 71)” After a while the council got enraged and yelled at him saying, “How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers? (Rand 71)” Equality just reinvented electricity. He just created a new way for light to be created and he was so excited to show the council. But when he did they completely shut him down. He did not build the light box with anyone else and he did not share this

with anyone else and so it is horrible and must be destroyed. Equality is trying to show the council that there is more to learn but the council is completely against any change. The council is part of the government and they were not going to share the light with anyone. Their plan was to destroy it and destroy Equality so that he could not share his ideas with anyone else. The citizens of the city are completely ignorant and unaware that electricity exists and did exist in the past.
The government is directly linked to the education of the citizens under it. If a government is against knowledge and change they they are going to do what they can to keep their citizens from having knowledge or wanting change. These books show this. From Equality’s passion for learning and excitement of sharing what he learned to Montag’s curiosity of books and interest in knowledge, everything is shattered, diminished and destroyed by the government. A confining government negatively affects its people both directly and indirectly and it definitely directly affects the education of the citizens.