“Since no one but you can know what's best for you, government control can't make your life better” (Browne). In 1950, communism was rising around the world. During this time, Joseph McCarthy accused a countless number of government officials of being communist spies. This event would eventually lead to the society in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Fear and government control are both complications that are within Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s speech and could give rise to the society and atmosphere in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Fear is present in both the book and the speech. In McCarthy’s speech, the fear of communism ruining mankind is present. “This religion of immoralism will more deeply wound and damage mankind than any conceivable economic or political system” (McCarthy 1). The fear of mankind being destroyed kept the whole population doing their job and made sure that they stayed loyal. This is what the government wanted. In Bradbury’s book, the fear of the mechanical hound materialized in every person. “I was just figuring, what does the Hound think about? It makes me cold” (Bradbury 25). The fear of the hound kept everybody in place. There was so little known regarding the menace and as a result, the people had a bigger fear of it. The government in the book felt this was needed to sustain society. There was also …show more content…
Fear is used in McCarthy’s speech to ensure that government officials loyal to the United states. Fear is also used by Bradbury to make sure that the citizens are in their place and doing their jobs. Government jurisdiction is used by McCarthy to keep the government from crumbling while it is used in Fahrenheit 451 to keep the population carefree. It is also used to stop the population from realizing that the world they are living in is a dystopia. The use of fear and government control to control society will be the downfall of
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 leads from an average beginning by introducing a new world for readers to become enveloped in, followed by the protagonist’s descent into not conforming to society’s rules, then the story spirals out of control and leaves readers speechless by the actions taken by the main character and the government of this society. This structure reinforces the author’s main point of how knowledge is a powerful entity that would force anyone to break censorship on a society.
In Fahrenheit 451, the government exercised censorship supposedly for the purpose of happiness. Through technology and media, the government was able to eliminate individuality by manipulating the mind of the people into believing the propaganda of what happiness is. The people’s ignorance made them obediently abide that they failed to realize how far technology and the media have taken control of their minds. The free thought of characters such as Montag and Clarisse collided with that of Captain Beatty, who strongly believe in and enforce the censorship, and the firemen, whose role was to burn illegal books; these clashes were Bradbury’s way
...that people can yet again fear that the communists might attack and send spies within to destroy their beloved country. Take the evidence from the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club when McCarthy stimulated the fear that Communism will spread and their spies will overthrow the democracy through traitorous means. Take the evidence of the Truman’s Response to McCarthy, Truman stated that the Kremlin must have put McCarthy there to cause turmoil and that must be a reason why he must have caused the country to go into a red scare. Take the evidence of the cartoon from Herb Block, which showed McCarthy drive his car into innocent people who had no influence of the communist and were scared by McCarthy’s ways of finding communists. McCarthy wanted to be well known and decided to start the red scare so that everyone else can fear and be aware of the communist everywhere.
Although the Red Scare made McCarthy who he was he did not make it any better. Document 6 shows us a cartoon of 2 men driving in a car saying “It’s okay--- we’re hunting communists” This cartoon shows us the fact that people who thought they were doing the right thing ,such as McCarthy, were running their own people over in the process and still thinking that everything they were doing was justified because they were so scared. People running over others just made those people get up and wonder why they weren’t doing as much or why they weren’t as scared as those guys were, so naturally they tried harder. McCarthy was intensified by the Red Scare but his actions only made it worse. He was a state senator. A government official working for the good of our country. Citizens tend to have respect for people of his position and they also tend to listen. Document 4 states “While McCarthy is the worst sort of demagogue, many people listen when he yells, screams and sputters, because they are afraid.” This statement says it all. He may be wrong in his doings but people still look to him out of fear because he is a leader, a respected man, and also an excuse. Document 4 says “In addition to the persecution of many innocent people by this man, the greater danger lies, as you point out, in that those who should be eliminated from public life as being unfit or subversive, can now defend themselves by stating that it is merely
The theme of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 can be viewed from several different angles. First and foremost, Bradbury's novel gives an anti-censorship message. Bradbury understood censorship to be a natural outcropping of an overly tolerant society. Once one group objects to something someone has written, that book is modified and censorship begins. Soon, another minority group objects to something else in the book, and it is again edited until eventually the book is banned altogether. In Bradbury's novel, society has evolved to such an extreme that all literature is illegal to possess. No longer can books be read, not only because they might offend someone, but because books raise questions that often lead to revolutions and even anarchy. The intellectual thinking that arises from reading books can often be dangerous, and the government doesn't want to put up with this danger. Yet this philosophy, according to Bradbury, completely ignores the benefits of knowledge. Yes, knowledge can cause disharmony, but in many ways, knowledge of the past, which is recorded in books, can prevent man from making similar mistakes in the present and future.
Often, dystopian novels are written by an author to convey a world that doesn’t exist, but criticizes aspects of the present that could lead to this future. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1951 but discusses issues that have only increased over time. The encompassing issue that leads to the dystopic nature of this novel is censorship of books. The government creates a world in which it is illegal to have any books. Firemen are enforcers of this law by being the ones to burn the books and burn the buildings where the books were found. By censoring the knowledge found in books, the government attempts to rid the society of corruption caused by “the lies” books are filled with in hopes the people will never question. In Fahrenheit 451, censorship is a paradox.
The Fahrenheit 451: Audio Introduction has many interesting passages that supply the reader with essential knowledge about the novel. The Audio Introduction as a whole was filled with engaging facts about Ray Bradbury, writing style and how to the book can to be. One of the more striking passages was passage eight were Bradbury talk about how Faber came to be. This passage is so interesting because we not only hear more about Faber and what Bradbury wanted him to be but we also hear a little about Bradbury himself and how Faber is a portrayal of him. Another passage that was fascinating was passage six. Passage six talked about the world Bradbury lived in and how it shaped his writing. Bradbury also described how this world (that influenced
Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, delivered The Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, in Oslo on December 10, 1986. He started his speech off by reciting the following prayer: "Barukh atah Adonai …shehekhyanu vekiymanu vehigianu lazman hazeh"—"Blessed be Thou…for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this day." Then, after his speech, the people thanked him for everything he had done to help humankind make peace. With a profound sense of humility, he accepted this honor.
Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence on the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our Democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books.
Historically, fear has been used to control populations. For example, asearly as the 1700s, white men controlled black slaves through the fear of being killed. During slave days, in the South, the ratio was nine blacks to every white person (Nash and Graves 213). When Nat Turner, a black slave, finally revolted, the United States government responded by sending the army with tanks and guns to resist the black men. The reaction of the whites imbedded the fearof revolts within the slaves. The blacks could have successfully revolted, but were controlled by the fear of the powerful white man. The white man held the power and con...
e a world where books were banned and all words were censored. Freedom of speech has always been considered to be the most fundamental of the human rights. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury emphasizes the importance of freedom of speech by giving readers a glimpse of how the world would be if written works were prohibited. The novel is considered to be a classic because it can usually be linked to society. The novel’s relevance is connected to its themes and its overall message. The themes of loneliness, alienation, conformity, and paranoia play a crucial role in the novel by showing how censorship can transform society negatively.
"(Cook p77). Fear was the greatest underlying cause of the McCarthy movement; fear of communism, fear of the loss of freedom, fear of being accused or fear of what would happen if someone challenged the movement. Works Cited Rogin, Paul. The 'Standard'. The Intellectuals and McCarthy: the Radical.
The government can lead the world to being exuberant, or it can bring society into utter mayhem. In 1984 the government relies largely on brainwashing and totalitarian policies such as spies. Unlike the government in 1984, the government in Fahrenheit 451 keeps tabs on all those who deviate from the majority. They do not care much about the thoughts of rebellion, they instead use television to numb the minds of the population. Politics of The Party in 1984 have taken control of everything, making the whole population their minions. Both authors, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, involved war as a background, but they fundamentally differ from each other. Orwell’s concept of war is that of a tool for the perpetuation of scarcity and paranoia. On the other hand, in Bradbury’s case it is all-out total annihilation. Enfranchised will is extinguished by the falsification and change of history records, love being outlawed, and the invasion of privacy.
In 1932 Franklin. D Roosevelt stated “ Only Thing we have to Fear Is Fear itself”. This was a quote from a great leader. However, they’re different types of people called demagogues who control a herd using fear as their tool. Control through fear is used by and students in schools including Trinity in Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, and is even used by parents in real life.
...irony in McCarthy's approach is communist regimes use censorship as a primary tool in their government. Censorship is the first step to oppression and Bradbury, through "Usher II", reminds us that we need to fight censorship and those who try to impose it. There are still struggles with censorship everyday currently John Ashcroft is trying to censor a lot of the material that is used to teach students in public schools and colleges. It is important that we have stories like "Usher II" to help us realize that it isn't in our best interests to let someone else decide what is appropriate or inappropriate, decent or indecent, moral or immoral. The moral climate of a society needs to be determined by the people in the society.