Ray Bradbury

And Fahrenheit 451

Words of Wisdom from Bradbury

• “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them” -Ray Bradbury

Journal: What does the following mean to you?

• “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them” –Ray Bradbury

History of Ray Bradbury

• Born in Waukegan, IL on August 22, 1920

• Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by many historical aspects…especially…– Stalin and his successors who burned

“questionable” books and killed or imprisoned the authors

– Hitler and the Nazi’s who burned books by Jews or “questionable” authors

Nazi book burnings

Bradbury interview…

• When asked why people should read books, Bradbury responded with: “Because we are trying to solve the muster of our loves, no matter what kind you have. Quite often there’s an end to it and you have to find a new love. We move from novel to novel.”

• What does this mean to you?

What do you think?

• What is censorship? • Is censorship a “good” or

“bad” idea? Can it be both? Why or why not?

The idea of CENSORSHIP:

• Defined as: suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body.

• Books• Music• Education • News

Censored books

• The Grapes of Wrath: for its “negative” portrayal of rural people

• To Kill a Mockingbird: racial slurs and occasional swear words

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: alleged racial content

• Catcher in the Rye: profanity, events like prostitution, depression and alienation

• Ironically, Fahrenheit 451 has also be censored

Discussion Questions

• What does the following mean to you?• Do you agree with it? In what context?

Why or why not?• 1.censorship• 2. morality• 3. dictatorship, • 4. freedom of speech • 5. consequences

Now…

• Come up with your OWN question and write it on a piece of paper-one that deals with any of the words that we just discussed

Fahrenheit 451 overview

• Guy Montag lives in a world (a futuristic America) in which he is a fireman. He is a book burner, in which he is responsible for burning books in a society in which reading or keeping books is not allowed.

• Fahrenheit 451 is “the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns”

Themes/Symbols and Imagery

• 1) The Idea of Censorship• 2) Knowledge vs. Ignorance• 3) Utopia vs. Dystopia• 4) Animals and Nature

Short Stories

• Let’s first look at two short stories, The Veldt and Harrison Bergeron- annotate for the idea and concepts of censorship, knowledge vs. ignorance and utopia vs. dystopia