Web CT 10/23: Why Books?

Prof. asked us today in ENGL 312, opening our discussion on Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, “why books?” Why burn the books? If we go back about two centuries in our history, remember that during slavery, slaves were kept illiterate to keep them ignorant, because literacy = power. The power to read gives one the power to attain knowledge. Burning books, as is the case in the dystopic world of Fahrenheit 451 is a way to keep people ignorant and free of thought.

I’ve always loved to read. As a young child, it helped me to foster a very keen and vivid imagination. I questioned everything around me, because books, specifically works of literature take you to a world that is beyond your own. Captain Beatty, a character in the novel, says “Books say nothing! Nothing that you can teach or believe. They’re about nonexistent people, figments of imagination, if they’re fiction” (Bradbury 62). As an aspiring writer, that line stopped me dead in my tracks. A life without imagination? That’s no life to lead.

The novel examines this same line of thinking. For example, there are no porches because people sit out on porches to think. This “big brother” figure, the government, whoever does not want people to sit and think, to brood, or to ponder. It’s all a scheme to keep people in their place. That smells of totalitarianism. What a sad, sad world.