During and after the Second World War, political and nationalistic sentiments saw the burning and removal of books as part of reality. Post-WWII, economic prosperity in the US saw print media give way to new technologies and trends. This video explores the influences on and dystopian elements of Ray Bradbury’s novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’. It provides a valuable accompaniment and some historical context to students studying this text.
1933 Book Burnings - Bibliographies (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
Book Burning (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
Nazi Book Burnings: Recurring symbol (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
For episode 2 of my Banned Books series, let me tell you the evolutionary story of Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451. Learn how a slew of short stories became a novella which became the novel, see the multiple first editions as well as some other innovative editions, discover the link between the novel and Playboy magazine, and hear about some censorship challenges the book has faced.
Beginning on May 10, 1933, Nazi-dominated student groups carried out public burnings of books they claimed were “un-German.” The book burnings took place in 34 university towns and cities. Works of prominent Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers ended up in the bonfires. The book burnings stood as a powerful symbol of Nazi intolerance and censorship.
Book Burning (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
Fahrenheit 451 is a 1966 British dystopian drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, and Cyril Cusack. Based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, the film takes place in a controlled society in an oppressive future in which the government sends out firemen to destroy all literature to prevent revolution and thinking.
1933 Book Burnings - Bibliographies (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools (Friedman & Johnson, 2022) - Many Americans may conceive of challenges to books in schools in terms of reactive parents, or those simply concerned after thumbing through a paperback in their child’s knapsack or hearing a surprising question about a novel raised by their child at the dinner table. However, the large majority of book bans underway today are not spontaneous, organic expressions of citizen concern. Rather, they reflect the work of a growing number of advocacy organizations that have made demanding censorship of certain books and ideas in schools part of their mission.
Book Burning (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
Nazi Book Burnings: Recurring symbol (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d.).
The history of book bans 0 and their changing targets - in the U.S. (Blakemore, 2022) - From religious texts and anti-slavery novels to modern works removed from school libraries, here’s how the targets of censorship have changed over the years.
The Real History Behind Book Burning and Fahrenheit 451 (Rothman, 2018) - In the 1940s and ’50s, as the Cold War took seed, the country saw its share of book-burnings. In 1940, members of the Binghamton, N.Y., Board of Education, for example, proposed a public burning of textbooks thought to be subversive.
What's the Flame Point of Data? Updating Fahrenheit 451 for the E-Book Era (Romig, 2018) - When Ramin Bahrani, writer and director of HBO’s new TV movie Fahrenheit 451, was asked why he thought the world needed another adaptation of the Ray Bradbury sci-fi dystopian classic when there’s already a François Truffaut version from 1966, he points to an iPhone and says, “This thing.”
"McCarthyism was a term coined to describe activities associated with Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. He served in the Senate from 1947 to 1957.
Reference: (Pufong, 2023)
Video Reference: McCarthyism (2006)
When Senator Joseph McCarthy begins his foolhardy campaign to root out Communists in America, CBS News impresario Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) dedicates himself to exposing the atrocities being committed by McCarthy's Senate "investigation." Murrow is supported by a news team that includes long-time friend and producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney). The CBS team does its best to point out the senator's lies and excesses, despite pressure from CBS' corporate sponsors to desist.
Ref. Wikipedia
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Joseph McCarthy and the force of political falsehoods (Menand, 2020) - McCarthy never sent a single “subversive” to jail, but, decades later, the spirit of his conspiracy-mongering endures.
McCarthyism and the Red Scare (UVA Miller Center, 2023) - Online exhibit via the Miller Center at the University of Virginia full of primary sources, multimedia, and background information on McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare (Storrs, 2015) - The second Red Scare refers to the fear of communism that permeated American politics, culture, and society from the late 1940s through the 1950s, during the opening phases of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Fahrenheit 451: Reading the 1950s (Jordison, 2011) - Ray Bradbury's dystopia is clearly humming with the anxieties of its times. But how well do we know the decade that made them?
Ray Bradbury investigated for communist sympathies (Flood, 2012) - Science fiction great put under surveillance by the FBI for 'spreading distrust and lack of confidence in America'.
Journal Articles
Archival Domination in Fahrenheit 451 (Hurtgen, 2016) - This article discusses how 'the state in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (1953) uses new media as a tool to create passive, surveilled subjects, entertained by programs engineered to embed state ideology into the viewer.
Postmodern Dystopian Fiction: An Analysis of Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' (Anwar, 2016) - this article explores the destructive power of technology and censorship in Fahrenheit 451.
Study Guides
Fahrenheit 451 | Themes (Course Hero)
Literary Devices: Themes (Sparknotes)
Fahrenheit 451 Technology and Modernization (Shmoop)
Weblinks
Americans' trust in media remains near record low (Brenan, 2022) - At 34%, Americans' trust in the mass media to report the news "fully, accurately and fairly" is essentially unchanged from last year and just two points higher than the lowest that Gallup has recorded, in 2016 during the presidential campaign.
Fahrenheit 451 Tackles the evils of Social Media (Gilbert, 2018).
Media & Society - Articles on media and society from the Pew Research Center based on statistical data.
The Problem with Social Media According to 'Fahrenheit 451' (Reiter, 2013).
Why 'Fahrenheit 451' is the Book for Our Social Media Age (Bahrani, 2018) - For Bradbury, books were repositories of knowledge and ideas. He feared a future in which those things would be endangered, and now that future was here: The internet and new social-media platforms — and their potential threat to serious thought — would be at the heart of a new film adaptation.
Why 'Fahrenheit 451' is the Book for Our Social Media Age (Bahrani, 2018) - For Bradbury, books were repositories of knowledge and ideas. He feared a future in which those things would be endangered, and now that future was here: The internet and new social-media platforms — and their potential threat to serious thought — would be at the heart of a new film adaptation.