Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 has been legendary in opening up societies eyes to the true nature of an unfree, nightmarish future. Fahrenheit 451 uses perfect symbolism of what dystopia future is supposed to resemble  as the in the future after the year 1960, the people are forced to listen to the radio with any and all books must be burned by fireman. The use of symbolism through the “firemen” parallels the actions and attitude of many historically oppression based groups including the Hitler’s Nazis in Germany and the Red Scare during the McCarthy era in the 1950s. In the 1950s, the Red Scare was fear campaign created by the United States government to scare civilians into believing that the spread of communism from Russia would reach the US. Because America was in the middle of the Cold War, many people were easily convinced of fearing their own neighbor because they might be a communist. Although the two groups were not necessarily the same in their actions, their intentions of trying to use intimidation, propaganda and controlled information to maneuver their society’s into not questioning the governing bodies’ intent. For example, the opening of the film shows numerous types of antennas staged on different buildings to portray a clear metaphor of the government having a massive overreach of trying to control its civilians through different forms of technology. Following the antenna’s, the firemen show up to a man’s apartment and begin to strip search the place for the books. After they discover the books in the ceiling light, mini bar, radiator and television, they gather them all and then proceed to burn them. Ironically, in normal society, firemen are supposed to put fires out and save people but in Fahrenheit 451, the firemen are ordered to burn books and endanger the civilians for trying to have free thought.  As mentioned before, this tactic can be compared to the Nazis of Germany doing search and seize of home homes mixed with the McCarthy era of FBI agents searching peoples home that were suspected of being  a communist. During the duration of the film, the use of books is clearly to symbolize the idea of information or any form of intelligence other than what the government wants you to know. In Fahrenheit 451, the idea of the firemen is to try to control any thought outside of what society told them to believe. People are controlled like sheep and do as they are told. Much like the Russian revolution, the people are willing to believe anything they are told except for the few who try to hide their books (and free will) from the firemen. A great example of how much some people believed in having free will so bad was the woman who opposed her books being burned so bad that she set herself and the books on fire. I believe that this was to articulate the message that she was willing to die not just for what she believed in but was willing to die having free thought and with her books (or the information she had attained from reading them). I believe this scene is critical for the old cliché of dying free rather than living in slavery.

 In Soylent Green, much like Fahrenheit 451, the people have become suppressed by the relentless grip of the government on its people. With unemployment at a sky rocket record and the homeless population at an all time high and the very rich are hidden away from the poor. It seems that in every Dystopia or Post Apocalyptic themed film always has the exposure of total government control. With more government mandates and overreach, every civilizations falls into a state of anarchy except instead of no government, the government is the enemy.