Fahrenheit 451 Rhetorical Analysis

A phoenix, in all of its scarlet glory, is thought to live for 500 hundred years before being consumed by fire and born again. Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, demonstrates that the oppressing of information will backfire regardless of circumstance. Like a phoenix, the society that Bradbury created goes through a never ending cycle of creation and destruction. He asserts that the obstruction of knowledge through censorship in order to “protect” the public, will ultimately lead to violent consequences, therefore defeating its original purpose.

In the first section of Fahrenheit 451, “The Hearth and the salamander,” Beatty- a fireman- explains to the protagonist Montag, the history of firemen and this the banning of most books. Beatty says that, “It didn’t come from the government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship to start with, No! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time...,” (Page 58). In saying this Beatty explains that the oppression of knowledge came from the people to protect the

people. Meaning that the original purpose was protection.
As Montag strays further and further from the “preset” path destruction only seems to follow him. Before he knew it Montag had found himself corned at his own home by the other firemen in the story. As a result, he was forced to burn all of the literary works that he had collected over time. Beatty, having continuously mocked Montag, became Montag’s first victim. As a consequence of obstructing information Beatty was violently murdered. His death was described as, “...a shrieking blaze, a jumping sprawling gibbering manikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn.... Beatty flopped over and over and over and at last twisted in on himself like charred wax doll and lay silent,” (Page 119). His death was a perfect example of the violent consequences that assuredly follow censorship.
Another example of the consequences that result as a defect of censorship would be the detachment from reality. The woman in the world of Fahrenheit 451 leave Montag questioning their moral values. They judge people solely based on appearance, feel no sorrow when their husbands die during war, or desire to continue furthering their bloodline. Mrs. Bowles the only mother among Montag’s wife’s friends described having children similar to doing laundry. She tells the group, “I plunk the children up from school nine days out of ten. I put up with they come home three days a month; its not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn on the switch. Its like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid,” (Page 96). While not inherently violent, a lack of reproduction could lead to annihilation of a bloodline, nonetheless an entire race.
In the final section of the book,...

Further along Granger tells Montag of a mythical bird. Granger says that, “There was a silly damn bird called phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up.... But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again,.” (Page 163). as Granger would later explain, the people of their country are like phoenix’s. Their towns burnt as a result of obstructing knowledge now leads them to seek the truth once more. The people of the book go through a never ending cycle of exploration, censorship, rebellion, and once again exploration. In doing so the Characters of Fahrenheit 451 needlessly use censorship regardless of the fact that no matter what they do, they always end up back where they started, making the whole process

unnecessary.