Discussion Topic
The moral lessons and central message conveyed in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
Summary:
The central message of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a warning against censorship and the loss of intellectual freedom. The novel emphasizes the importance of independent thought and the dangers of a society that suppresses books and critical thinking, ultimately advocating for the preservation of literature and knowledge as essential to human progress and self-awareness.
What is the main message in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451?
One of the main messages in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is that people often trade a meaningful literary experience for the entertainment of television and that the trade often leaves them feeling empty.
Mildred stands as the epitome of this dystopian society which relies on television to fill free time. She and her friends spend the great majority of their time consumed with vapid shows, and they become so obsessed with screen time that they don't care about much else. When Montag tries to talk to them about their husbands going to war, they laugh off the conversation:
The three women fidgeted and looked nervously at the empty mud-coloured walls.
"I'm not worried," said Mrs. Phelps. "I'll let Pete do all the worrying." She giggled. "I'll let old Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I'm not worried."
"Yes," said Millie. "Let old Pete do the worrying."
"It's always someone else's...
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husband dies, they say."
"I've heard that, too. I've never known any dead man killed in a war. Killed jumping off buildings, yes, like Gloria's husband last week, but from wars? No."
"Not from wars," said Mrs. Phelps.
In this brief conversation, the women can't help but grow anxious about the missing entertainment, their eyes turning to the now-empty walls in hopes that their show will return. After this exchange, their conversation quickly turns back to the programs they had watched the previous evening. They are unable to hold a sustained discussion about anything except a world of make-believe and fiction.
On one level, Mildred and her friends feel busy. With their schedule of entertainment, there is always something new to watch and do. Yet there is little to actually sustain them, because their lives are devoid of literature and meaning. When Mildred faces internal conflict, she becomes desperate. She lacks the inner strength of Clarisse, who is an avid reader. The contrasts in these two women is a powerful indication of the impact of quality literature on people's abilities to reason and to truly enjoy life.
This message could be extended in our society today to include other forms of screen time. Bradbury examined his society and determined that "people [were] being turned into morons by TV," and he therefore might be concerned about other forms of screen usage today: smart phones, laptops, tablets, gaming systems, and handheld gaming devices.
Research tells us that those who spend excessive amounts of time looking at screens are overall less happy and more depressed, reminding us of Mildred's suicide attempt in Fahrenheit 451. Thus, Bradbury's reminder to turn off our screens in order to live better lives is a message that has become increasingly important in a technologically diverse society.
Bradbury's main message is that a society that wants to survive, thrive, and bring its people fulfillment must encourage them to wrestle with ideas. He indicts a society that puts all its emphasis on providing people with a superficial sense of happiness.
Beatty sums up the dystopic vision Bradbury opposes when he defends the importance of the book burning firemen:
The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we're the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dyke. Hold steady. Don't let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world.
Bradbury, in contrast, argues that without some conflict, thought, melancholy, or philosophy a society is doomed. He illustrates this in two ways in the novel. First, average citizens like Mildred live lives of quiet desperation. Mildred gets so bored with a constant of diet of television drivel and a lack of meaningful activity that she attempts suicide. The "happy" society Beatty defends is filled with bored adults and violent teens who spend their time watching vacuous television shows or speeding around in cars. People exist in a dehumanized way rather than feeling fully, vibrantly alive.
Second, at the end of the novel, this society is literally destroyed in a nuclear war. By showing the consequences of banning them, Bradbury highlights the importance of books and critical thinking skills to a healthy society.
Ray Bradbury wanted readers to understand the importance of reading and thinking. One of his quotes that I think sums up much of what he was saying is, "You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." He set "Fahrenheit 451" in an unspecified, but not too distant, future. He chose that setting so that people could relate better to the idea of what might happen if people get too caught up in themselves and get too lazy to think. He speaks to the reader often through the characters of Beatty and Clarisse. Clarisse explains to Montag, in their conversations early in the story, how the society is caught up with speed and how they've become unfeeling. Beatty tells Montag in the first part, how the society came to be the way it is and this is where it is most evident that Bradbury is speaking to the reader. He warns of being too politically correct and thus watering down literature. He warns against censorship. He warns the reader about what happens when people get in a hurry and only want the short version of something and thus miss the full flavor. By having Beatty speak and showing what happens when people stop reading, Bradbury is encouraging the reader to read. At the end of the story, Bradbury gives people a ray of hope that this trend can be stopped if only people are willing to fight for the right to read and think.
Bradbury, as well as many science fiction writers, wrote his book in response to his observations of societal changes happening around him. The number of cars on the roads had increased greatly, as had the number of TVs in people's living rooms. Bradbury became increasingly concerned that we were becoming a numb society - interested in only what we could get faster and easier, interested in filling up our headswith meaningless noise. If you research the time period he was writing in, you'll be able to make many connections to what he projected for the future in "Fahrenheit 451."
Beyond societal commentary, I believe he is also making points about individuality and the person vs. society conflict.
Arguably, the main theme of Fahrenheit 451 is censorship. According to Beatty, censorship came into being as a result of the majority who, over a period of time, chose entertainment over the pursuit of knowledge:
School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped…Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work.
But this pursuit of pleasure created a society filled with ignorance and technology. We see this most clearly through the character of Mildred. While she has the constant company of the parlour walls, she is miserable and isolated, as demonstrated by her suicide attempt in Part One.
In addition, censorship has created a group of social outsiders, like Clarisse and Faber, who question the status quo and then find themselves ostracised. These individuals have a great impact on Montag and their desire for knowledge contributes to his change from fireman to social outsider. It is the dangers of censorship, however, which provides the impetus for Montag, after he witnesses a woman give her life for her books:
There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there, you don't stay for nothing.
Bradbury uses the Bible as a symbol of human culture and accomplishment.
Montag is obsessed with the Bible. His first contact with Faber is a phone call.
"Professor Faber, I have a rather odd question to ask. How many copies of the Bible are left in this country?"
"I don't know what you're talking about! "
"I want to know if there are any copies left at all." (part 2)
Montag is concerned because he is afraid that his copy is the last copy of the Bible that exists. Mildred even accuses him of caring more about the Bible than her, and in some ways she is right. He does care more about it. She is just a parody of a wife. The Bible is real history and human culture, and more important than her, him, or any one person.
Montag tries to memorize as much of the Bible as he can, no matter the risk, so that it won’t be lost forever. He no longer cares about himself.
Montag explains to Faber why the Bible and the other books are so important to him.
"I don't know. We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I'd burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help." (Part II)
Faber calls him a hopeless romantic, but he realizes Montag is serious. He has looked at the world and seen the absence of culture. When we lose our books, and our religion, we lose our humanity.
When Montag does find the underground book people, he becomes part of the Bible. Montag memorizes Ecclesiastes, which is significant because it literally means "teacher." When it is time to rebuild civilization, Montag will be a part of it.
The novel has more than one theme, but a major theme is that books, because they contain complex language and ideas, can empower people to become fully human. In the dystopic world of this novel, firemen have become people who raid homes and burn books, which the state has outlawed. Instead of reading, individuals are encouraged to watch mindless drivel and propaganda on giant television screens. This flattens, dulls and empties life. For example, fireman Montag's wife tries to commit suicide by taking a bottle of pills. She doesn't remember the incident, but it reveals the barrenness of her television-addicted existence. Montag himself becomes interested in books after encounters with a perceptive young neighbor, Clarisse, awaken him from his stupor of mindless living.
Another theme of the book is risk-taking: books symbolize risk and Montag can only become fully human as he embraces the world of books and leaves his old, safe life behind.
What are the three main lessons in Fahrenheit 451?
The first main lesson of the novel is the importance of individualism versus collectivism. All the people who conform to society are ignorant and incapable of critical thought. Clarisse, who is an individualist, seems more able to observe and judge the strange society -- such as the legitimization of hit-and-run accidents as acceptable catharsis -- and so is deemed a threat to society.
Another lesson is the importance of differing opinions. Everyone in the future society of the novel thinks the same way, likes the same things, and has the same opinions. There is no difference in thought and so there is no reason to question what is shown as fact by the government. This causes people to think that the impending war is not a very important issue; the war later destroys the entire city.
Another lesson is the importance of content versus emotion. All the television programs are meaningless, not even telling a story, because all they do is appeal to emotion without any larger context. Chief Beatty explains:
"More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience."
(Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Google Books)
Effects like this can be seen in modern times, when a focus on fast information and fast entertainment has caused attention spans to shorten. Without focusing on real content with meaningful information, the mind gets distracted and confused.
References
What is the moral lesson of Fahrenheit 451?
Arguably, the moral lesson of Fahrenheit 451 is that censorship not only stifles learning and creativity, it also makes people miserable. We see this in Part One through the relationship between Montag and Clarisse. She is a non-conformist and creative individual who makes Montag realize that his happiness is little more than an illusion. She does this (unknowingly) by encouraging him to question the world and its rules. The result of this reflective practice is transformative on Montag:
He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other.
Similarly, we see the relationship between censorship and unhappiness through the character of Mildred. She busies herself with the television and her seashell radio but, deep down, she is miserable, as we see through her suicide attempt in Part One. Furthermore, her reluctance to accept the overdose demonstrates her unwillingness to deal with her emotions. Through Mildred, Bradbury suggests that censorship can never bring true contentment and happiness: at the end of the novel, for instance, Mildred realizes her emptiness as she meets her demise in a hotel room:
She was her own face reflected there…and it was such a wildly empty face, all by itself in the room, touching nothing, starved and eating of itself.