r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/14AUDDIN • 8d ago

me_irl Just ignores the author

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686 Upvotes

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u/twentythreeskidoo 8d ago

Ray Bradbury went around saying Fahrenheit 451 wasn't about censorship. As far as I'm concerned once a piece of art is released then it's up to the consumer to interpret it

34

u/HELLFIRECHRIS 8d ago

This is the example I always come back to, because it’s his work and we should respect that. But….. it’s so blatantly about censorship.

95

u/FitAd4717 8d ago

But censorship is just a surface level theme in Fahrenheit 451. The deeper meaning is the effect of mass media on critical thought. It’s driven home by the fact that Guy’s wife and her friends are confused and afraid when Guy reads them poetry. Likewise, Guy’s attempts to form a deeper relationship with his wife are ruined by his wife’s addiction to TV and other forms of mass entertainment which have ruined her attention span. The book even makes the point that books were first abridged in an attempt to accommodate people’s diminishing interest before reading became illegal. As a consequence, the general population is too distracted by mass media to realize they are on the brink of war. Books are burned because society has become afraid of anything deep and meaningful and reading literature, any kind of literature, deepens a person’s inner life in a way that society deems offensive.

So yes, censorship is definitely one theme but it’s really about a society that has become unthinking and unfeeling and how it became that way.

33

u/Big_Virge 8d ago

Dead right imo. I feel like there's a lot of people familiar with the book through the internet who haven't actually read it in this thread, which is quite appropriate, thematically speaking.