Intro to Fahrenheit 451

1. Intro to Fahrenheit 451 Lecture Notes, Background, and Themes

2. Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) • As a child, Bradbury recalls an intense fascination with monsters, magicians, and adventure films. • He began writing stories at the age of 12. • He wrote for Alfred Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone. • Bradbury is the author of more than 500 published literary works that include short stories, plays, novels, poetry, and screenplays.

3. The Life of a Writer • In 1940, Bradbury sold his first story. • In 1942, he was able to quit his newspaper job and write full-time. • His first novel was The Martian Chronicles, which describes humankind’s first attempt to colonize the planet Mars. • This novel combines science fiction with social commentary—an approach that characterizes much of his work.

4. Social Concerns • Bradbury’s works explored the threat of nuclear war, censorship, racism, conformity, and the dangers of technology—issues that still concern us today.

5. Historical Context Fahrenheit 451 was developed in the years immediately following World War II. It condemns not only the anti-intellectualism of Nazi Germany (book burnings), but also America in the 1950s—the heyday of McCarthyism, and a growing fear of communism. Other influential social criticisms of the time include George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm.

6. McCarthyism Joseph McCarthy -republican senator of Wisconsin known for headlines of charging others of communist infiltration in American organizations. -accusations were baseless and ruined the careers of many distinguished citizens. -in 1950-publicly charged –that more than two hundred secret communists had infiltrated the State Department. -U.S. conducted a militant anticommunist campaign in Eastern Europe and China, Senator McCarthy obsessively pursued an investigation of communists in all walks of life here at home. -The McCarthy hearings in 1954 -investigated charges by Senator McCarthy. -television audience of twenty million Americans -public reaction to Senator McCarthy became more negative. -thirty-six days, thirty-two witnesses, seventy-one half-day sessions, 187 hours of TV air time, 100,000 live observers, and two million words of testimony. All for the pretext of protecting the nation from communist infiltration, federal agents attacked individual rights and extended state power into movie studios, universities, labor unions, and many other ostensibly independent nongovernmental institutions.

7. When Fahrenheit 451 was written Communism and national security: the red scare Due to the U.S. conflict with the Soviet Union, anti-Communism moved to center of American politics. U.S. policymakers had come to view the Soviet Union as a hostile power -only the United States was strong enough to resist. The anti-communist agenda: What transformed the communist threat into a national obsession was the involvement of the federal government. Federal government actions helped to legitimize the anticommunist consensus that enabled most Americans to participate in the serious violations of civil liberties that characterized the McCarthy era.

8. What is Social Criticism? • Social criticism analyzes (problematic) social structures, and suggests practical solutions similar to radical reform, or revolutionary change. • Fahrenheit 451 is a social criticism that warns against the danger of suppressing thought through the censorship of books.

9. 2003 1953

10. Are books still banned? • Yes, books are still banned. Five of the 10 titles on the Top Ten list were removed from the location where the challenge took place. On average, 10% of challenges result in the removal of the book. • The First Amendment guarantees all of us the freedom to read. The Library Bill of Rights, a foundational document of the library profession, states libraries should challenge censorship and present all points of view, for the enlightenment of all people. • 2016: For the first time, a book was challenged solely because of its author. Bill Cosby’s Little Bill series was challenged because of sexual allegations against the author. • Challenges continue to target LGBT material, and there is a rise in “sexually explicit” as a challenge category. The rise in sexually explicit challenges are primarily from parents. • The Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles the Top Ten list by documenting public challenges as reported by the media, as well as censorship reports submitted through their office.

11. The 1950s • By mid-century, nearly 60% of Americans were members of the middle class; they had more discretionary income. • Consumerism = Success • The electronics industry became the 5th largest industry. Television had a widespread impact in American homes. • The United States became an automobile culture. • The increase in prosperity after the war led to an increased passivity and conformity. Jobs were plentiful and the common adage of the time period was: “follow orders, and you will succeed.”

12. The Novel: • Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953. • It is a novel of social criticism that warns against the dangers of suppressing thought through censorship. • It uses the conventions of science fiction to convey a message that “oppressive government, left unchecked, can do irreparable damage to society by limiting the creativity and freedom of its people”.

13. Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury (1953) Time: the Future Place: a City The book is ablaze with the hope and despair of a writer wanting humankind to learn from its historical mistakes, and from the wisdom of its writers. Imagine a world where everything is sped up, where bill boards are five times bigger than ours because the speed limit is so high, where everything you see from a car is a blur, where pedestrians don’t exist. A future populated by non-readers and non-thinkers, people with no sense of their history, where a totalitarian government has banned the written word. This is more than just a story of dictatorial censorship, it is a story that also draws parallels between entertainment and addiction, between individual avoidance of thinking and governmental means of thought prevention.

14. Set in the twenty-fourth century, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy Montag, a thirty-year-old-fireman whose job is to set fires, not put them out. He and his colleagues burn books, which are now considered contraband. At the outset Montag takes pleasure in his work, and thinks himself a happy man. Soon, however, he begins to question the value of his profession and, in turn, his life. ………

15. Personal Context On a more personal level, Bradbury used Fahrenheit 451 as a means of protesting what he believed to be the invasiveness of editors, who, through strict control of the books they printed, impaired the originality and creativity of writers.

16. FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: FACT: Fahrenheit 451 Censorship History Ballantine Books originally published the Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, but in 1967 brought out a special edition to be sold to high schools. Without informing Bradbury or putting a note in the edition, the publisher modified seventy-five passages in the novel in order to eliminate words like “hell,” “damn.” The expurgated edition was sold for thirteen years before a friend of Bradbury’s alerted him to the problem. Bradbury demanded that Ballantine withdraw the version and replace it with the original. Ballantine agreed. The publicity generated by the expurgated version of Fahrenheit 451 caused the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee to investigate other school books and use its considerable economic clout to warn publishers about expurgations and demand that any excised versions be clearly identified. (from www.trib.com)

17. More & More - People clamor for technology: faster computers, faster connections to internet, social media, faster internet, smarter cars, voice mail, etc. People seem petrified of wasting time. Bradbury believed that the presence of fast cars, loud music, and a constant barrage of advertisements created a life with far too much stimulation in which no one had the time or ability to concentrate. Further, he felt people regarded the huge mass of published material as too overwhelming, leading to a society that read condensed books (very popular at the time Bradbury was writing) rather than the real thing. Is this still true today? “Television is a chewing gum for the Eyes.” Frank Lloyd Wright Percentage of children ages 8-16 who have a TV in their bedroom: 56% Average time per week that the American child ages 2- 17 spends watching television: 19 hours and 40 minutes The average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders. Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1500 Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours “The remarkable thing about TV is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still I feel lonely.” T.S. Eliot

18. Bradbury Was Right… • In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury tries to “prevent the future,” not predict it, but he actually does anticipate the future. • Seashell Radios • Parlor Walls • Population Explosion • A reliance on technology to mediate all social experience

19. What Else was Bradbury Right About? A rise in violence (including gun violence) The use of televised surveillance footage for many purposes. Growing illiteracy The condensation of information into what we now call “sound bites.”

20. Themes: Censorship • Censorship is defined as the removal or withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body. • Typically done by governments, religious and secular groups, corporations, or the mass media.

21. Censorship in the Novel • In the world of Fahrenheit 451, books are burned because they trigger thought and discontent, two things that are unwelcome in this “happiness oriented” society. • What’s unexpected about the censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is that it seems to have originated with the people, not the government.

22. Theme: Ignorance vs. Knowledge • What does true happiness consist of? • Is ignorance bliss, or do knowledge and learning provide true happiness? • In this world, firemen promote ignorance by destroying books—and with them—knowledge.

23. Theme: Technology-Deadening Human Experience • Technology in Bradbury’s 24th century is highly advanced and dominates society. • TV, radio broadcasts, fast cars and atomic weapons dominate people’s experiences—at the expense of things like nature, music and poetry.

24. Theme: Dystopian Society • The “Dystopia” motif, popular in science fiction— an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. • society that demands order at the expense of individual rights—is central to the novel.