"I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited from. Man, when I was younger I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn" (Bradbury 104). The words of Professor Faber in Fahrenheit 451 shed light on a society where being politically correct is the only option. Fahrenheit 451 is a book considered by many as one of Ray Bradbury’s finest works. Fahrenheit 451 is the story of a dystopian society where books are banned and burned and the world is controlled by the information spread to people by mass media. The story takes place
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Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. Throughout his childhood, the family moved often due to economic issues (Reid 1). Often when traveling, the first place Ray would look for when they stopped was the nearest library (Weller 198). Ray would hunt for science fiction books but often found that they were not there. This was largely due to the fact that many librarians of the time didn’t consider science fiction books to be literature and, therefore, didn’t stock them on their library shelves (198). Ray held a particular interest in libraries, in fact they absolutely fascinated Ray Bradbury. A particular fact that pained and bothered him was the Library at Alexandria, Egypt. To Ray, the knowledge that a building that contained so much knowledge and information had been destroyed truly saddened him (198). Ray spent most of his young adult life living in Los Angeles where he attended high school. In high school Ray took an interest in drama and writing. He was a member of the school's drama club and took numerous writing courses (Ried 2). Ray was an active reader and follower of science fiction, and it showed often in his class assignments. However, this interest did have its effects early on in his writing career. He was the only student in the fiction class who did not have their story published in the high school’s Short Stories Anthologies because it was a science fiction story (2). As an active …show more content…
Attending the movies, as he often did, he saw newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler’s supporters burning books in Germany. The sight of such atrocities absolutely disgusted and pained him. Ray said: “When Hitler burned a book, I felt it as keenly, please forgive me, as his killing of a human, for in the long sum of history they are one and the same flesh” (Weller 199). The acts of destroying books also served as a reminder to the fate of the Library at Alexandria, Egypt. Which has been considered a symbol of the loss of cultural knowledge. As the 1930’s moved into the 1940’s and World War II erupted, Ray attempted to join the military. However, he was unable to serve due to poor eyesight. Instead Ray was able to write radio broadcasts, and scripts for the Red Cross and the Los Angeles Department of Civil Defense (Ried 3). In his later works, his hometown of Waukegan and the city of Los Angeles where he lived most of his life, would find their ways into his writing. His works such as Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Farewell morning, and Summer Morning, Summer Night are all set in Greentown. Greentown is specifically based on Waukegan Illinois where he was born. His time living in Los Angeles would be represented in Fahrenheit 451 as a basis for the large city where the story takes place. (2) Many other strange events found their way into Fahrenheit 451. One of the
Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. Throughout his childhood, the family moved often due to economic issues (Reid 1). Often when traveling, the first place Ray would look for when they stopped was the nearest library (Weller 198). Ray would hunt for science fiction books but often found that they were not there. This was largely due to the fact that many librarians of the time didn’t consider science fiction books to be literature and, therefore, didn’t stock them on their library shelves (198). Ray held a particular interest in libraries, in fact they absolutely fascinated Ray Bradbury. A particular fact that pained and bothered him was the Library at Alexandria, Egypt. To Ray, the knowledge that a building that contained so much knowledge and information had been destroyed truly saddened him (198). Ray spent most of his young adult life living in Los Angeles where he attended high school. In high school Ray took an interest in drama and writing. He was a member of the school's drama club and took numerous writing courses (Ried 2). Ray was an active reader and follower of science fiction, and it showed often in his class assignments. However, this interest did have its effects early on in his writing career. He was the only student in the fiction class who did not have their story published in the high school’s Short Stories Anthologies because it was a science fiction story (2). As an active …show more content…
Attending the movies, as he often did, he saw newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler’s supporters burning books in Germany. The sight of such atrocities absolutely disgusted and pained him. Ray said: “When Hitler burned a book, I felt it as keenly, please forgive me, as his killing of a human, for in the long sum of history they are one and the same flesh” (Weller 199). The acts of destroying books also served as a reminder to the fate of the Library at Alexandria, Egypt. Which has been considered a symbol of the loss of cultural knowledge. As the 1930’s moved into the 1940’s and World War II erupted, Ray attempted to join the military. However, he was unable to serve due to poor eyesight. Instead Ray was able to write radio broadcasts, and scripts for the Red Cross and the Los Angeles Department of Civil Defense (Ried 3). In his later works, his hometown of Waukegan and the city of Los Angeles where he lived most of his life, would find their ways into his writing. His works such as Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Farewell morning, and Summer Morning, Summer Night are all set in Greentown. Greentown is specifically based on Waukegan Illinois where he was born. His time living in Los Angeles would be represented in Fahrenheit 451 as a basis for the large city where the story takes place. (2) Many other strange events found their way into Fahrenheit 451. One of the