Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a masterful novel taking place in a dystopian world, in which books and almost all forms of self-expression have been banned; humans are voluntarily enslaved by technology, which is the case for our main character’s wife, Mildred, whose independent thoughts have been taken over by the radio she listens to around the clock.
Montag, a fireman put in charge of burning all books, is also our protagonist. He has his own ideas about the oppressive world depicted in this novel, and as he transitions from a book-burning fireman to a questioning rebel, we get a glimpse of what this world is like through the eyes of someone complicit in its repressiveness.
The world in which we are thrown into in this novel attempts to remove complicatedness from its citizens’ lives to subdue contradictory ideas, and the banning of books is a huge part in this. The citizens we are introduced to seldom feel fulfillment from their lives, as their minds are dull with a lack of ideation and filled with the information of a mindless mainstream media.
Quite ironically, the book was banned from several schools between the years 2000 and 2009, and although this is not nation-wide as is depicted in Bradbury’s novel, the very idea of it is still incredibly satirical.
Understanding, theorizing, deduction; these are all stimulants we humans need to survive and thrive in a society, and free media such as books are an incredible portal to that, even in my own experience. Taking a glimpse into a world with no books or independent thoughts, we dim our own brains even reading about it.
As someone who hasn’t always been a fan of dystopian fiction, this one is special. It’s filled with reflection and realizations, mixed with George Orwell’s incredible writing. A book I‘ve recommended before and will continue to forever.
If you like Fahrenheit 451, I recommend:
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
EAC PRESS 