FAHRENHEIT 451

Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 is about a society which believes books are bad influences and should be destroyed. This society also avoids thinking, primarily by being surrounded by television screens.

Fahrenheit 451 is a social criticism that warns against the danger of suppressing thought through censorship and media. Developed in the years immediately following WWII, Fahrenheit 451 condemns not only the anti-intellectualism of Nazi Germany, but more immediately America in the early 1950s – the heyday of McCarthyism

1950s The era following WWII in the United States was know for its productivity, its affluence, and its social conformity The economy was strong The technology of tv, air travel, and the transistor brought the future to the forefront The neighborhood Montag lives in probably looks like Levittown

Levittown (New York was the 1st one) Conformity

Conformity Here is an example of the type of ‘50s conformity propaganda that was prevalent at the time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDzNiVs KWIs Why was this done?

Major science fiction books of the 50s: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury The Illustrated Man by Bradbury The Currents of Space by Asimov Lord of the Flies by William Golding Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick

Although the 50s are remembered as a decade of peace and prosperity, they were anything but The Korean War, which ended in the year that Fahrenheit 451 was published,(1953) saw tens of thousands of American deaths The Cold War was a lingering anxiety People worried that the world could be destroyed with the push of a button

Censorship at this time was alive and well Communists were assailed in the press Comic books were condemned as subversive by parents and educators This was a time of atomic tests, racial segregation, government censorship, and growing angst 1946 – 7,000 television sets in US 1950 – 50,000,000 – big on traditional American values

PROGRESS THROUGH SCIENCE 1951 – 1st IBM mainframe computer 1952 – Hydrogen bomb test 1953 – DNA structure discovered 1954 – Salk vaccine tested for polio 1957 – 1st commercial U.S. Nuclear Power Plant 1957 – Russians launch Sputnik I 1958 – NASA was created

Atomic testing: 1946-1962 – US exploded 217 nuclear weapons over the Pacific and in Nevada Created the “duck and cover generation”

Ray Bradbury Born August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, IL Starting writing Fahrenheit 451 in 1950. The first, shorter draft was called “The Fireman”. He finished the final version in 1953

Themes Censorship Knowledge vs. Ignorance Technology Identity Conformity vs. Individuality

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT How is knowledge power? How do we benefit from ideas and learning different points of view?

Why would those in control of a society want to suppress knowledge?

Why are ideas dangerous? What ideas historically have been dangerous?

How do books represent us (mankind)?

List 3 reasons if you had power over people why their literacy could threaten your power

Is there an idea you would be willing to die for? Explain why.

If you were going to write a book, what would it contain If you were going to write a book, what would it contain? What things do you think are important for the world to know?

If all books in the world were going to be burned tomorrow and you could only save one, which would it be and why?