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“It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure

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to see things eaten,
to see things blackened and changed.”

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Fahrenheit 451 opens in a blissful blaze
- and before long,

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we learn what’s going up in flames.
Ray Bradbury’s novel imagines a world

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where books are banned from all 
areas of life - and possessing,

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let along reading them, is forbidden.
The protagonist, Montag, is a fireman

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responsible for destroying what remains.
But as his pleasure gives way to doubt,

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the story raises critical questions
of how to preserve one’s mind in

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a society where free will, self-expression,
and curiosity are under fire.

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In Montag’s world, mass media
has a monopoly on information,

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erasing almost all ability
for independent thought.

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On the subway, ads blast out of the walls.
At home, Montag’s wife Mildred listens to

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the radio around the clock,
and three of their parlor walls

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are plastered with screens.
At work, the smell of kerosene

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hangs over Montag’s colleagues, 
who smoke and set their mechanical

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hound after rats to pass the time.
When the alarm sounds they surge

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out in salamander-shaped vehicles,
sometimes to burn whole

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libraries to the ground.
But as he sets tomes ablaze day

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after day like “black butterflies.”
Montag’s mind occasionally wanders

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to the contraband that
lies hidden in his home.

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Gradually, he begins to question
the basis of his work.

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Montag realizes he’s always felt uneasy -
but has lacked the descriptive words

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to express his feelings in a society where
even uttering the phrase

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“once upon a time” can be fatal.
Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world governed

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by surveillance, robotics, and virtual
reality - a vision that proved remarkably

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prescient, but also spoke to
the concerns of the time.

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The novel was published in 1953,
at the height of the Cold War.

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This era kindled widespread paranoia
and fear throughout Bradbury’s home country

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of the United States, amplified by the
suppression of information

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and brutal government investigations.