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It would be hard to imagine the government censoring the data being fed to the public in a world of diversity and cultural differences. Bradbury uses the characters of Mildred and Montag, both mindless and common members of society, in this speculative fiction book, Fahrenheit 451, to reinforce his theme that creating a highly controlled society kills individuality and terminates or represses human emotions and individual thinking.
By creating a society that strives to be a perfect utopian city, the government must censor and forbid thoughts and certain information that could lead to conflicts among the citizens to create perfect harmony and happiness throughout the city. The firemen in this novel, instead of extinguishing fires, start the fires. They burn every book they find to shield the citizens from the knowledge of the past. As Captain Beatty states, ¨what is fire… its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it… fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later¨(Bradbury, 109). He highlights how instead of facing problems head-on and dealing with the issue at hand, he rather takes the easy way out and burns the problem he is having. Thus preventing people from reading and learning more about the past and having an extremely different point of view on whether technology had a positive or negative effect on society.
The government must censor and forbid thoughts and certain knowledge that could lead to disputes among people to establish harmony, peace, and happiness in the city. In doing so they are establishing a society that aims to be a perfect utopian city. The firemen in this novel launch the fires instead of extinguishing the fires to protect people from the nastiness they call home so they destroy every book they find. As Faber provides and says, 'So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality” (Bradbury 83). He explains how there is life present in books and how the books reveal blemishes in everyday life. Most people are uncomfortable with how truthful books can be and although the government or the firemen are the ones destroying the books, the hatred the citizens feel towards books makes censorship so easily incorporated into their lives.
No better than a dystopian society is a utopian society. Every resident of that city has a certain role to play and a certain way of thinking in a utopian society. Individuality is lost, everything will be done one way and everybody will think the same, and what makes everybody special from each other is lost. In their lives, they will be mindless zombies who are told what to do to preserve peace within the city. Book censorship would obstruct the right of people to freely learn or think. “If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none'(Bradbury 39). Bradbury is highlighting how, when men are given options, it is difficult for them to choose so instead they just tell them what to do. Instead of using their brains and solving problems, the government just tells them what to do so the citizens' brain usage and capacity decreases over time with constantly being told what to do. The government and the firemen use censorship to control the citizens, they do this by burning information and or multiple perspectives on an issue, in other words they only prove the people with one option so they can only choose that option, not having to worry about two sides of a question will make people happier. People will only know what they are told by their televisions and what is being told to them by the government.
The society is developing a community of little to no advancement of learning due to the censored world which highlights further the dangers of censorship. Throughout the novel it can be seen that any books that illustrate intelligence and contrasting ideas are destroyed and burned. The only knowledge known by the people is the knowledge known by everyone else. This implies that after what is already learned, there is no available learning, significantly restricting the progression. As Captain Beatty explains, “They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors (Bradbury, 56). As Beatty explains that without books, a person can’t be more or less intelligent than another person, they are equal in knowledge and feel equivalent to everyone else. He claims this way of living provides people “peace of mind” that knowing you are equal to another in intelligence will make everyone satisfied thus not needing to compete with each other.
Having a society that is continually watched over and governed by the government, which seeks to construct a world of utopia, forces people to conform and suppress those emotions and thoughts that help to have individuality and diversity in a city. To stay uninformed and therefore calm, the firemen gained their greatest pleasure from burning books for humans. With this in mind, it is evident that the government of the United States has censored the content that the media airs. Also, individuals are addicted and believe what is being fed to them through the media, so Bradbury's novel strikes as a warning of what culture might inevitably turn into with all the technological advances.
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