Literary Analysis Essay On Fahrenheit 451

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Montag Against the World
The Cold War was a very stressful time for both the American government and it’s people. Nobody felt safe due to the threat of the Soviets themselves, their spies, and the technology they were producing. During this time of the Cold War, Ray Bradbury was writing his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451. In this dystopian novel, Bradbury portrays the thoughts and fears of the American people during the war and uses them to craft the society the main character, Guy Montag, lives in. The people of the society have been betrayed by the government on multiple occasions; the government censors books and ideas, hypnotises people with tv, and strikes fear into people with the firemen, who burn books and everything inside …show more content…

While Beatty, Montag’s boss and captain of fire station 451, is explaining to Montag how the job of being a fireman came to be, he also mentions the people’s desire to be happy. People become unhappy when they disagree with one another. The government wants to fulfill the wants of a man and therefore wants him to be happy so they, “don’t give him two sides to a question ... give him one. Better yet give him none” (58). All people have a difference of opinions, one person may think one thing is right and another person may believe that another thing is right. This is part of what makes humans human, to be able to think on their own and form their own opinions based on their experiences. To take this away from people is taking away from a person's being and personality. If a society is chipping away at it’s people and restricting information so nobody can form opinions then that society is a threatening environment. In order to limit the amount of opinions and different ideas that make people unhappy the government has to eliminate the information that people are receiving. With the majority of the information being spread by book, the government decided to stop the spread of books by burning them. People all around the world read and they read to gather information to know more about the world and what it holds. It is natural for people to crave and seek for knowledge and it is apart of everyday life for a great amount of people if not all people in the world. The government in Fahrenheit 451 restricts the knowledge available to it’s people, this goes against natural human behaviors and creates a threatening environment. In addition to being detrimental to human behavior and personality, the society Montag lives in is also physically harmful. Once while talking to Clarisse, Montag learns, “six

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