One universal theme that this book addresses is the idea of book censorship. Ray Bradbury was a very smart, outspoken man who did not like the idea of his own ideas being cut down or stopped because of censorship. He took this mentality and formed it into the idea for his novel, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury shows the readers the dangers of what society would be like if it was censored of books. People in society are generally getting lazier and lazier and developing shorter attention spans due to the increase of technology. Bradbury believes that people will soon not have the patience to be able to sit down and concentrate to read a novel, so publishers are censoring and cutting down the material. You do not see as many 500 hundred page novels being popular anymore. When Ray Bradbury wrote this novel, anthologies of lots of other novels combined were very popular. He comments on how these storied were shortened in the Coda, "Simplicity itself, skin, debone, demarrow, scarify, melt, render down and destroy" (Bradbury 176).
In today's time, books are already being censored. Harry Potter, a great book series that many children read and start them on a lifetime love of reading (Me included. I read The Sorcerer's Stone in first grade), is banned in some school districts. Because of its "witchcraft and magical" ideals, some people think that the novel will influence their children negativity. Like Bradbury, I do not see the need to censor books. The Catcher in the Rye is another book people love to sensor for its language and moral dealings (Time Staff). I read this book earlier this summer, and I loved it. I would hate if we were not allowed to read it because it is such a truthful look into a teenager's mind. Like Ray Bradbury predicted, the world is already censoring books. Who knows how long before our society becomes like the one in Fahrenheit 451.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Del Rey Book, 1991. Print.
Time Staff. "Removing the N Word from Huck Finn: Top 10 Censored Books." TIME.com. Time, 07 Jan. 2011. Web. 13 Aug. 2011.
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