Jack Mears
Fahrenheit 451 Conclusion Paper
4/27/2015

What We Don’t Know
Roughly 55 countries in our world today are oppressed or without rights, such as freedom of press, freedom of speech, and equality. Several of these rights are taken away in Ray
Bradbury’s book
Fahrenheit 451.
In this book the citizens voted that books should be banned, so the government took action and banned them. Replacing firemans jobs with saving people and putting out fires to starting them so all books would be rid of. Guy Montag one of these fireman loves his job, but on a particular job, he changes, when the arrive they find hundreds of books.
When the owner of these books is asked to leave, she won’t and dies with her books. This horrifies and intrigues Guy, we begins to wonder why she did this. He meets Faber, a former english teacher before the books were banned, he finds his answer. With Faber, Guy makes many plans on how they should bring books back. But all fail in the end as a man hunt is sent out for
Guy, and he is forced to leave the city. In
Fahrenheit 451,
Ray Bradbury uses dystopian characteristics to demonstrate how an overabundance of technology results in a breaking down of society.
The use of the distracted citizens characteristic of dystopian books was used by Ray
Bradbury through the setting of an abundance of television. Televisions are very important to this characteristic in that they provide us so much information and are such an easy way to get distracted. They are also a very easy form of technology to control. In the book this is shown by
"Christ is one of the ‘family’ now. I often wonder if God recognizes his own son the way we've

dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He's a regular peppermint stick now, all sugar­crystal and saccharine when he isn't making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshipper absolutely needs" (Bradbury 77). In the quote Bradbury explains how with televisions people can take anything from society and remaster it so that no one truly recognizes it. The t.v. parlors have voice recognizers that takes what they say and inputs it to the show where needed so that they are more developed in the show that causes them to never want to stop watching. This can cause viewers to be completely lost in the show and they’ll never get anything done because of it.
Citizens are conformed to one idea, be like everyone else, watch the same and act the same. Conformity is a destructor it ruins society and sets guidelines that some can not reach, so they must conform to the lowest standards. “More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don’t have to think, eh?” (54). Bradbury talks about how through the advancements of technology and knowledge even in sports no one has any differences. The very thought of conformity in sports can completely change the world. “Montag reached inside the parlour wall and pulled the main switch. The images drained away, as if the water had been let out from a gigantic crystal bowl of hysterical fish. The three women turned slowly and looked with unconcealed irritation and then dislike at Montag”(90). Just like in our society today when friends and families sit down and relax we often are irritated with those who disrupt what we are doing and when we are doing it.
In
Fahrenheit 451 the control of books and media influences the citizens thoughts which allows the government or political leaders to completely rule them with absolute power.
If the media is controlled by the government it with only ever be against the people. “When did it all

start , you ask, this job of ours, how did it come about, where, when? Well, I’d say it really got started around a thing called the Civil War. Even though our rule book claims it was founded earlier” (51). Bradbury is talking about how the fireman got their new jobs as fire starters instead of putting it out. This is controlled by the government