1 00:00:06,624 --> 00:00:08,344 “It was a pleasure to burn. 2 00:00:08,344 --> 00:00:11,144 It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, 3 00:00:11,144 --> 00:00:13,944 to see things blackened and changed.” 4 00:00:13,944 --> 00:00:18,844 Fahrenheit 451 opens in a blissful blaze - and before long, 5 00:00:18,844 --> 00:00:21,894 we learn what’s going up in flames. 6 00:00:21,894 --> 00:00:24,394 Ray Bradbury’s novel imagines a world 7 00:00:24,394 --> 00:00:28,304 where books are banned from all areas of life - 8 00:00:28,304 --> 00:00:32,184 and possessing, let alone reading them, is forbidden. 9 00:00:32,184 --> 00:00:37,504 The protagonist, Montag, is a fireman responsible for destroying what remains. 10 00:00:37,504 --> 00:00:39,794 But as his pleasure gives way to doubt, 11 00:00:39,794 --> 00:00:44,684 the story raises critical questions of how to preserve one’s mind in a society 12 00:00:44,684 --> 00:00:49,884 where free will, self-expression, and curiosity are under fire. 13 00:00:49,884 --> 00:00:54,054 In Montag’s world, mass media has a monopoly on information, 14 00:00:54,054 --> 00:00:57,734 erasing almost all ability for independent thought. 15 00:00:57,734 --> 00:01:01,174 On the subway, ads blast out of the walls. 16 00:01:01,174 --> 00:01:05,854 At home, Montag’s wife Mildred listens to the radio around the clock, 17 00:01:05,854 --> 00:01:10,054 and three of their parlor walls are plastered with screens. 18 00:01:10,054 --> 00:01:14,244 At work, the smell of kerosene hangs over Montag’s colleagues, 19 00:01:14,244 --> 00:01:19,234 who smoke and set their mechanical hound after rats to pass the time. 20 00:01:19,234 --> 00:01:23,474 When the alarm sounds they surge out in salamander-shaped vehicles, 21 00:01:23,474 --> 00:01:27,054 sometimes to burn whole libraries to the ground. 22 00:01:27,054 --> 00:01:31,404 But as he sets tomes ablaze day after day like “black butterflies,” 23 00:01:31,404 --> 00:01:37,274 Montag’s mind occasionally wanders to the contraband that lies hidden in his home. 24 00:01:37,274 --> 00:01:40,414 Gradually, he begins to question the basis of his work. 25 00:01:40,414 --> 00:01:43,634 Montag realizes he’s always felt uneasy - 26 00:01:43,634 --> 00:01:48,034 but has lacked the descriptive words to express his feelings in a society 27 00:01:48,034 --> 00:01:52,584 where even uttering the phrase “once upon a time” can be fatal. 28 00:01:52,584 --> 00:01:55,314 Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world governed 29 00:01:55,314 --> 00:01:59,094 by surveillance, robotics, and virtual reality- 30 00:01:59,094 --> 00:02:04,394 a vision that proved remarkably prescient, but also spoke to the concerns of the time. 31 00:02:04,394 --> 00:02:09,354 The novel was published in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. 32 00:02:09,354 --> 00:02:12,844 This era kindled widespread paranoia and fear 33 00:02:12,844 --> 00:02:16,154 throughout Bradbury’s home country of the United States, 34 00:02:16,154 --> 00:02:21,254 amplified by the suppression of information and brutal government investigations. 35 00:02:21,254 --> 00:02:23,904 In particular, this witch hunt mentality 36 00:02:23,904 --> 00:02:28,734 targeted artists and writers who were suspected of Communist sympathies. 37 00:02:28,734 --> 00:02:31,934 Bradbury was alarmed at this cultural crackdown. 38 00:02:31,934 --> 00:02:35,554 He believed it set a dangerous precedent for further censorship, 39 00:02:35,554 --> 00:02:38,924 and was reminded of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria 40 00:02:38,924 --> 00:02:41,994 and the book-burning of Fascist regimes. 41 00:02:41,994 --> 00:02:45,914 He explored these chilling connections in Fahrenheit 451, 42 00:02:45,914 --> 00:02:49,224 titled after the temperature at which paper burns. 43 00:02:49,224 --> 00:02:52,684 The accuracy of that temperature has been called into question, 44 00:02:52,684 --> 00:02:55,014 but that doesn’t diminish the novel’s standing 45 00:02:55,014 --> 00:02:57,764 as a masterpiece of dystopian fiction. 46 00:02:57,764 --> 00:03:03,064 Dystopian fiction as a genre amplifies troubling features of the world around us 47 00:03:03,064 --> 00:03:07,144 and imagines the consequences of taking them to an extreme. 48 00:03:07,144 --> 00:03:08,854 In many dystopian stories, 49 00:03:08,854 --> 00:03:12,804 the government imposes constrictions onto unwilling subjects. 50 00:03:12,804 --> 00:03:14,974 But in Fahrenheit 451, 51 00:03:14,974 --> 00:03:17,934 Montag learns that it was the apathy of the masses 52 00:03:17,934 --> 00:03:20,344 that gave rise to the current regime. 53 00:03:20,344 --> 00:03:23,284 The government merely capitalized on short attention spans 54 00:03:23,284 --> 00:03:25,834 and the appetite for mindless entertainment, 55 00:03:25,834 --> 00:03:29,364 reducing the circulation of ideas to ash. 56 00:03:29,364 --> 00:03:33,714 As culture disappears, imagination and self-expression follow. 57 00:03:33,714 --> 00:03:36,404 Even the way people talk is short-circuited 58 00:03:36,404 --> 00:03:42,294 - such as when Montag’s boss Captain Beatty describes the acceleration of mass culture: 59 00:03:42,294 --> 00:03:47,234 "Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, 60 00:03:47,234 --> 00:03:52,774 There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! 61 00:03:52,774 --> 00:03:58,484 Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. 62 00:03:58,484 --> 00:04:03,634 Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes!" 63 00:04:03,634 --> 00:04:08,254 In this barren world, Montag learns how difficult it is to resist when 64 00:04:08,254 --> 00:04:10,704 there's nothing left to hold on to. 65 00:04:10,704 --> 00:04:15,014 Altogether, Fahrenheit 451 is a portrait of independent thought 66 00:04:15,014 --> 00:04:16,434 on the brink of extinction - 67 00:04:16,434 --> 00:04:19,824 and a parable about a society which is complicit 68 00:04:19,824 --> 00:04:21,984 in its own combustion.