1. FAHRENHEIT 451

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. Levittown (New York was the 1st one)
Conformity

6. Conformity
Here is an example of the type of ‘50s conformity propaganda that was prevalent at the time
KWIs
Why was this done?

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

17. How do books represent us (mankind)?

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

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

20. 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?

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