WEBVTT 00:00:06.624 --> 00:00:08.344 “It was a pleasure to burn. 00:00:08.344 --> 00:00:11.144 It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, 00:00:11.144 --> 00:00:13.944 to see things blackened and changed.” 00:00:13.944 --> 00:00:18.844 Fahrenheit 451 opens in a blissful blaze - and before long, 00:00:18.844 --> 00:00:21.894 we learn what’s going up in flames. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:21.894 --> 00:00:24.394 Ray Bradbury’s novel imagines a world 00:00:24.394 --> 00:00:28.304 where books are banned from all areas of life - 00:00:28.304 --> 00:00:32.184 and possessing, let alone reading them, is forbidden. 00:00:32.184 --> 00:00:37.504 The protagonist, Montag, is a fireman responsible for destroying what remains. 00:00:37.504 --> 00:00:39.794 But as his pleasure gives way to doubt, 00:00:39.794 --> 00:00:44.684 the story raises critical questions of how to preserve one’s mind in a society 00:00:44.684 --> 00:00:49.884 where free will, self-expression, and curiosity are under fire. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:49.884 --> 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 --> 00:01:01.174 On the subway, ads blast out of the walls. 00:01:01.174 --> 00:01:05.854 At home, Montag’s wife Mildred listens to the radio around the clock, 00:01:05.854 --> 00:01:10.054 and three of their parlor walls are plastered with screens. 00:01:10.054 --> 00:01:14.244 At work, the smell of kerosene hangs over Montag’s colleagues, 00:01:14.244 --> 00:01:19.234 who smoke and set their mechanical hound after rats to pass the time. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:19.234 --> 00:01:23.474 When the alarm sounds they surge out in salamander-shaped vehicles, 00:01:23.474 --> 00:01:27.054 sometimes to burn whole libraries to the ground. 00:01:27.054 --> 00:01:31.404 But as he sets tomes ablaze day after day like “black butterflies,” 00:01:31.404 --> 00:01:37.274 Montag’s mind occasionally wanders to the contraband that lies hidden in his home. 00:01:37.274 --> 00:01:40.414 Gradually, he begins to question the basis of his work. 00:01:40.414 --> 00:01:43.634 Montag realizes he’s always felt uneasy - 00:01:43.634 --> 00:01:48.034 but has lacked the descriptive words to express his feelings in a society 00:01:48.034 --> 00:01:52.584 where even uttering the phrase “once upon a time” can be fatal. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:52.584 --> 00:01:55.314 Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world governed 00:01:55.314 --> 00:01:59.094 by surveillance, robotics, and virtual reality- 00:01:59.094 --> 00:02:04.394 a vision that proved remarkably prescient, but also spoke to the concerns of the time. 00:02:04.394 --> 00:02:09.354 The novel was published in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. 00:02:09.354 --> 00:02:12.844 This era kindled widespread paranoia and fear 00:02:12.844 --> 00:02:16.154 throughout Bradbury’s home country of the United States, 00:02:16.154 --> 00:02:21.254 amplified by the suppression of information and brutal government investigations. 00:02:21.254 --> 00:02:23.904 In particular, this witch hunt mentality 00:02:23.904 --> 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 --> 00:02:38.924 and was reminded of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria 00:02:38.924 --> 00:02:41.994 and the book-burning of Fascist regimes. 00:02:41.994 --> 00:02:45.914 He explored these chilling connections in Fahrenheit 451, 00:02:45.914 --> 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 --> 00:02:57.764 as a masterpiece of dystopian fiction. 00:02:57.764 --> 00:03:03.064 Dystopian fiction as a genre amplifies troubling features of the world around us 00:03:03.064 --> 00:03:07.144 and imagines the consequences of taking them to an extreme. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:07.144 --> 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 --> 00:03:14.974 But in Fahrenheit 451, 00:03:14.974 --> 00:03:17.934 Montag learns that it was the apathy of the masses 00:03:17.934 --> 00:03:20.344 that gave rise to the current regime. 00:03:20.344 --> 00:03:23.284 The government merely capitalized on short attention spans 00:03:23.284 --> 00:03:25.834 and the appetite for mindless entertainment, 00:03:25.834 --> 00:03:29.364 reducing the circulation of ideas to ash. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:29.364 --> 00:03:33.714 As culture disappears, imagination and self-expression follow. 00:03:33.714 --> 00:03:36.404 Even the way people talk is short-circuited 00:03:36.404 --> 00:03:42.294 - such as when Montag’s boss Captain Beatty describes the acceleration of mass culture: 00:03:42.294 --> 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 --> 00:03:58.484 Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. 00:03:58.484 --> 00:04:03.634 Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes!" 00:04:03.634 --> 00:04:08.254 In this barren world, Montag learns how difficult it is to resist when 00:04:08.254 --> 00:04:10.704 there's nothing left to hold on to. 00:04:10.704 --> 00:04:15.014 Altogether, Fahrenheit 451 is a portrait of independent thought 00:04:15.014 --> 00:04:16.434 on the brink of extinction - 00:04:16.434 --> 00:04:19.824 and a parable about a society which is complicit 00:04:19.824 --> 00:04:21.984 in its own combustion.