Fahrenheit

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is another dystopian tale set in the futuristic world of no libraries, no writing and no just plain reading. We have studied a number of dystopian, futuristic tales through the semester so far, beginning with 1984 up to 451. I think I prefer Fahrenheit 451 to 1984. While both are rather pessimistic worlds in the eyes of the author, with Fahrenheit there seems to be a slightly less bleak sense. I actually watched the film version of the story from Francois Truffaut and starring Julie Christie and Oskar Werner. I seem to be the only one in the class that enjoyed it, amusingly, but that could be because I enjoy films more than novels. Bradbury’s image of what government control can do to its citizens, is ironic and clever with using something we do in our everyday life (read) as a metaphor as censorship (as well as Bradbury’s respect for the written word). We realize how ridiculous it would be to be programmed to not do something so necessary and simple. And that complete government control could still have the possibility of turning dystopian, if we let our lives be run by others.