Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury
This entry was created for the Fall 2014 semester by Austin Amsler.
Why Banned: Bad for Children

Banning History:

While not currently banned as of this writing, Fahrenheit 451 has seen its fair share of objection since its publication in 1953. Beginning in 1967, the publisher of Fahrenheit, Ballantine Books, published a censored version to be distributed to schools. Among the edits were the removal of words deemed inappropriate for young audiences, as well as changing various situations to make them more child friendly, like altering the description of a drunk man to that of a sick man. An uncensored version was also sold during this time, but was only available outside of schools. The censored version remained in print until 1979, although Ballantine had stopped printing the uncensored version in 1973 and only printed and distributed the censored version during these six years. After a complaint from Bradbury upon his discovery of this censorship, the censored version was removed from printing and the original, uncensored edition has been in print ever since.
The first real objection to Fahrenheit 451 came in 1987 where it was removed from Bay County schools in Panama, Florida for containing words deemed to be too vulgar. While this censorship was not directly aimed at removing Fahrenheit, it fell under a larger umbrella system designed to remove all books deemed unsuitable from Bay County schools. After a class-action lawsuit and student protests, the censorship system was removed. Only five years later, in 1992, Fahrenheit was challenged directly in Irvine, California's Venado Middle School by eighth grade English teacher Joan Dann. Dann had issued copies to her students with parts blacked out, claiming that she had had prior students black out any obscenities they came across as they read. After a small media debacle, protesting parents were able to get an uncensored edition reinstated. Fahrenheit 451 was not again challenged until 2006 when parents of a teenager in Montgomery County, Texas demanded the book be removed from their child's English class reading list, citing offensive language, its depiction of burning a Bible, and its general portrayal of violence. The book was never removed.

Author Bio

On August 22, 1920, Ray Bradbury was born to his mother Esther Bradbury and father Leonard Spaulding Bradbury in Waukegan, Illinois. His mother, an immigrant, and father, a telephone lineman; Ray was moved around the country as a child while his father pursued what work he could. The Bradburys shifted between their home in Waukegan and one in Tuscon, Arizona twice in this pursuit and it was during this time that Ray cultivated a love of books, particularly those of science fiction. It was also on the road to Tuscon during his second trip that Bradbury learned of the burning of the library in Alexandria, an event that he describes as having a deep impact on his life, despite his age. This was also around the same time in Nazi Germany that the book burnings in Berlin took place. Despite this, Bradbury described this time, from 1932 to 1933, as “...one of the greatest years of my life because I was singing in operettas and writing, beginning to write my first short stories.” A year later, the Bradburys moved for the last time to Los Angeles where Ray's father found work at a cable company. While browsing a bookstore in 1936 in Hollywood, Bradbury discovered a handbill for a local science fiction society which he promptly joined. This spurred him to start submitting his short stories to local magazines. Eventually, Bradbury came to write his first three major science fiction publications before commencing to work on Fahrenheit 451: Dark Carnival, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man. It was then during the time from 1947 to 1951 that Bradbury wrote what he considers the two main precursors to Fahrenheit 451: Bright Phoenix, a story in which a librarian confronts a man who censors by burning books, and The Pedestrian, where a man is arrested and his psyche evaluated for simply taking a nighttime walk. Upon the publication of Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, Ray Bradbury was coined as a new stalwart of the science fiction genre.

Discussion Questions

1) How does Bradbury ultimately portray technology like robots and television in Fahrenheit 451? Why does he choose to portray them the way he does?

2) How do the actions and behaviors of Millie exemplify the ideology of conformity prevalent during the time of Fahrenheit's conception?

3) What does it say about Beatty's character when Montag comes to the realization that Beatty wanted to die? Was Beatty perhaps just like Montag?

4) Despite Montag stating that “We've started and won two atomic wars since 1990,” why do their cities ultimately end up being the ones that are destroyed in the latest war? What does this say about the current state of his country?