Banned Book-Of-The-Day: Fahrenheit 451
- David Sanchez
- Sep 24, 2014
- 2 min read
Reasons for Censorship: Offensive language, anti-religious themes
“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is another classic book that’s had its good name smeared by book-banners. Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a dystopian America in which “fireman” burn books in order to keep people ignorant. In this world, knowledge, philosophy, intelligence, ideas, and logic are considered dangerous, and therein lies the reason the firemen burn books. Guy Montag is one such fireman. He and his wife live a dull, blank, meaningless life, that of which contrasts to their neighbor Clarisse’s life. Clarisse loves books—their ideas and their wisdom fascinate and excite her. When Clarisse mysteriously disappears one day, Guy becomes inspired by her passion for literature. He begins to collect books, hiding them from his fellow firemen. When his wife discovers his cache of novels and turns him in, Guy is forced to burn his books and escape from his dystopian society. As he flees from his home, he stumbles across a group of outlaw intellectuals who love, appreciate, and understand books. Together, they try to convince the world that books are not weapons—they are liberation.
Am I the only one who sees the irony here?!
The book that’s about how terrible it is to take books away from people is banned. The novel about burning books is banned. Seriously, do book-banners even think about what they’re doing? They are doing exactly what the bad guys in Fahrenheit 451 did! As for it being banned for “offensive language” and “anti-religious themes,” that is absolutely ridiculous. I always hate when books are banned for offensive language. There are words in this world that aren’t nice—that’s a fact. Are we going to make words like “hell” and “damn” illegal to say? Of course not! So why are books banned on account of that?
Fahrenheit 451 is a beautiful book that book-banners could learn a thing or two from. Free Guy Montag!
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