WEBVTT 00:00:06.624 --> 00:00:08.754 “It was a pleasure to burn. 00:00:08.754 --> 00:00:09.754 It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, 00:00:09.754 --> 00:00:13.654 to see things blackened and changed.” 00:00:13.654 --> 00:00:18.844 Fahrenheit 451 opens in a blissful blaze - and before long, 00:00:18.844 --> 00:00:23.364 we learn what’s going up in flames. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:23.364 --> 00:00:23.864 Ray Bradbury’s novel imagines a world 00:00:23.864 --> 00:00:24.364 where books are banned from all areas of life - 00:00:24.364 --> 00:00:29.174 and possessing, let alone reading them, is forbidden. 00:00:29.174 --> 00:00:34.584 The protagonist, Montag, is a fireman responsible for destroying what remains. 00:00:34.584 --> 00:00:39.794 But as his pleasure gives way to doubt, 00:00:39.794 --> 00:00:44.334 the story raises critical questions of how to preserve one’s mind in a society 00:00:44.334 --> 00:00:49.414 where free will, self-expression, and curiosity are under fire. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:49.414 --> 00:00:54.054 In Montag’s world, mass media has a monopoly on information, 00:00:54.054 --> 00:00:57.734 erasing almost all ability for independent thought. 00:00:57.734 --> 00:01:03.244 On the subway, ads blast out of the walls. 00:01:03.244 --> 00:01:04.244 At home, Montag’s wife Mildred listens to the radio around the clock, 00:01:04.244 --> 00:01:07.824 and three of their parlor walls are plastered with screens. 00:01:07.824 --> 00:01:12.184 At work, the smell of kerosene hangs over Montag’s colleagues, 00:01:12.184 --> 00:01:16.094 who smoke and set their mechanical hound after rats to pass the time. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:16.094 --> 00:01:21.134 When the alarm sounds they surge out in salamander-shaped vehicles, 00:01:21.134 --> 00:01:25.024 sometimes to burn whole libraries to the ground. 00:01:25.024 --> 00:01:29.314 But as he sets tomes ablaze day after day like “black butterflies,” 00:01:29.314 --> 00:01:34.124 Montag’s mind occasionally wanders to the contraband that lies hidden in his home. 00:01:37.224 --> 00:01:40.414 Gradually, he begins to question the basis of his work. 00:01:40.414 --> 00:01:44.614 Montag realizes he’s always felt uneasy - 00:01:44.614 --> 00:01:45.614 but has lacked the descriptive words to express his feelings in a society 00:01:45.614 --> 00:01:49.754 where even uttering the phrase “once upon a time” can be fatal. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:49.754 --> 00:01:54.574 Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world governed by 00:01:54.574 --> 00:01:55.574 surveillance, robotics, and virtual reality- 00:01:55.574 --> 00:02:01.024 a vision that proved remarkably prescient, but also spoke to the concerns of the time. 00:02:04.394 --> 00:02:08.954 The novel was published in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. 00:02:08.954 --> 00:02:13.904 This era kindled widespread paranoia and fear 00:02:13.904 --> 00:02:14.904 throughout Bradbury’s home country of the United States, 00:02:14.904 --> 00:02:18.764 amplified by the suppression of information and brutal government investigations. 00:02:18.764 --> 00:02:24.024 In particular, this witch hunt mentality 00:02:24.024 --> 00:02:28.734 targeted artists and writers who were suspected of Communist sympathies. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:28.734 --> 00:02:31.934 Bradbury was alarmed at this cultural crackdown. 00:02:31.934 --> 00:02:35.554 He believed it set a dangerous precedent for further censorship, 00:02:35.554 --> 00:02:38.574 and was reminded of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria 00:02:38.574 --> 00:02:39.574 and the book-burning of Fascist regimes. 00:02:39.574 --> 00:02:44.034 He explored these chilling connections in Fahrenheit 451, 00:02:44.034 --> 00:02:49.224 titled after the temperature at which paper burns. 00:02:49.224 --> 00:02:52.684 The accuracy of that temperature has been called into question, 00:02:52.684 --> 00:02:55.014 but that doesn’t diminish the novel’s standing 00:02:55.014 --> 00:02:56.014 as a masterpiece of dystopian fiction. 00:02:56.014 --> 00:03:00.784 Dystopian fiction as a genre amplifies troubling features of the world around us 00:03:00.784 --> 00:03:04.924 and imagines the consequences of taking them to an extreme. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:04.924 --> 00:03:08.854 In many dystopian stories, 00:03:08.854 --> 00:03:12.804 the government imposes constrictions onto unwilling subjects. 00:03:12.804 --> 00:03:17.574 But in Fahrenheit 451, 00:03:17.574 --> 00:03:18.074 Montag learns that it was the apathy of the masses 00:03:18.074 --> 00:03:18.574 that gave rise to the current regime. 00:03:18.574 --> 00:03:22.454 The government merely capitalized on short attention spans and 00:03:22.454 --> 00:03:25.784 the appetite for mindless entertainment, reducing the circulation of ideas to ash. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:25.784 --> 00:03:31.004 As culture disappears, imagination and self-expression follow. 00:03:31.004 --> 00:03:36.404 Even the way people talk is short-circuited 00:03:36.404 --> 00:03:41.974 - such as when Montag’s boss Captain Beatty describes the acceleration of mass culture: 00:03:41.974 --> 00:03:47.234 "Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, 00:03:47.234 --> 00:03:52.774 There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! 00:03:52.774 --> 00:03:58.734 Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. 00:03:58.734 --> 00:04:03.054 Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! 00:04:03.054 --> 00:04:08.714 In this barren world, Montag learns how difficult it is to resist when there’s 00:04:08.714 --> 00:04:12.684 nothing left to hold on to. 00:04:12.684 --> 00:04:13.684 Altogether, Fahrenheit 451 is a portrait of independent thought on the brink of extinction - 00:04:13.684 --> 00:04:18.254 and a parable about a 00:04:18.254 --> 00:04:22.254 society which is complicit in its own combustion.