Nature Of Power In Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'

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Introduction
The above quote by Juan Ramon Jimenez acts as the epigraph for Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and being true to its implied function sets the stage upright for the action to unfold. Writers, engaging with portrayal of reality as dystopia, lay bare interiority of power formation and functioning. All the dystopia novels can sufficiently be analysed in terms of the power structures forming its content, and subversive power structures. Foucault marks a moment of rupture from conventional epistemology of power. In his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison through two differing prison scenes, Foucault reflects on the contemporary nature of power: power no more attempts to be unapologetically authoritative; it rather disciplines, governs and conquers through its softer tools. The Foucaldian analysis opens possibility of subversion; a space allowing subversion and toppling down of hegemony. And thus Foucault maintains power can be positive too; it also implies co-existence of forces of domination and forces of …show more content…

The title: Doll melts of its own heat it can be extended to reflect on the fate of the dystopia presented in the novel. In the last lag, the power structures would annihilate their own ends giving way to new power structures. However, what ultimately would bring an end to the present power structures remains questionable. The alternate structures, the periphery or the Outcasts are created by the dominant structures and they operate with, if not within, the system. In an interesting reversal, Montag draws immense pleasure from burning the inner walls of his house which were TV screens propagating state agenda. Bradbury throws a hint at the reversal of the flow of energy from periphery to centre; the hierarchies would

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