Ray Bradbury

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Ray Bradbury
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• Censorship reflects a societys lack of
  confidence in itself. Potter Stewart/Associate
  Justice of the
• U.S Supreme Court (1915-1985)
• Explain what this quote means to you and support
  your response with literature, current events,
  history, science, art, or personal experience.

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• Ray Bradbury, the author of more than 500
  published literary works, was born in Waukegan,
  Illinois, on August 22, 1920.

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In 1934, when Bradbury was 14, the family moved
permanently to Los Angeles, California. He still
lives there
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• In his youth, Bradbury developed a love of magic
  and aspired to become a magician.
• In 1937, at the age of 17, Bradbury became a
  member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction League,
  through which he published his first work, a
  short lived science fiction fan magazine.

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Accomplishments

• In addition to his numerous books and short
  stories, Bradbury wrote for years for both Alfred
  Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone.

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• Designed the Spaceship Earth ride at Disney
  World's EPCOT Center.
• Worked as a consultant on city engineering and
  rapid transit

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Social Critic and Visionary

• Fahrenheit 451 written in 1953 between the era
  of McCarthyism and the Cold War Evokes the
  integrity of the individual and a bygone era
• Warns of the allurements and traps of a modern
  society
• Anticipates technological advancements

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• Dystopian Novel
• the dystopia became immensely popular during the
  1950s
• writers protested against what they saw as the
  overwhelming tide of conformity and cultural
  emptiness
• caused by mass-market television and other
  powerful forces in the postwar world.

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Themes

• ØCensorship
• ØEntertainment
• ØPolitical Correctness
• ØHappiness
• Nuclear War

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1 - Censorship

• Books are burned because they can lead to thought
  and discontent dangerous to a society devoted
  to happiness

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FACT FACT FACT FACT FACT FACT FACT FACT

• Ballantine Books originally published the novel
  in 1953, but in 1967 brought out a special
  edition to be sold to high schools. Without
  informing Bradbury or putting a note in the
  edition, the publisher modified seventy-five
  passages in the novel in order to eliminate words
  like hell, damn and abortion. The
  expurgated edition was sold for thirteen years
  before a friend of Bradburys alerted him to the
  problem. Bradbury demanded that Ballantine
  withdraw the version and replace it with the
  original. Ballantine agreed. The publicity
  generated by the expurgated version of Fahrenheit
  451 caused the American Library Associations
  Intellectual Freedom Committee to investigate
  other school books and use its considerable
  economic clout to warn publishers about
  expurgations and demand that any excised versions
  be clearly identified. (from www.trib.com)

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Mayan Literature burned By the Spanish to get Rid
of their culture
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China

• In China, the first censorship law
• was introduced in 300 AD. The
• ancient view of censorship was
• seen as a public service in the
• best interest of the people. The
• communist Chinese government
• has a long history of silencing
• any dissenting views with fear
• tactics and violence. While this
• type of censorship is not upheld
• by China today, other modern
• equivalences are. The internet is
• widely censored in China
• preventing its citizens from
• participating in the exchange of
• world wide ideas. The totally
• free exchange of information has
• never been enjoyed in Chinese
• society.

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(Historically it was carried out by governments
from 213 BC Qin Dynasty, Nazi Germany and to the
present day)
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Present Day Censorship

• On Sunday evening, members of the Harvest
  Assembly of God Church in Penn Township sing
  songsas they burn books, videos and CDs that
  they have judged offensive to their God.
• Published in the Butler Eagle, March 26, 2001.

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2 - Entertainment

• The story likens entertainment to a drug or
  addiction and encourages drug taking avoid
  thinking and being unhappy. 

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Better Entertainment

• More More - People clamor for technology
  faster computers, faster connections to internet,
  computerized chat
• rooms that enable us to speak to faceless
  strangers, more comprehensive cell phone
  networks, pagers, more
• powerful cars, voice mail, palm pilots, etc.
  People seem petrified of wasting time.
• Bradbury believed that the presence of fast cars,
  loud music, and a constant barrage of
  advertisements created a life
• with far too much stimulation in which no one had
  the time or ability to concentrate. Further, he
  felt people regarded
• the huge mass of published material as too
  overwhelming, leading to a society that read
  condensed books (very
• popular at the time Bradbury was writing) rather
  than the real thing.

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Entertainment

• Television is a really dreadful influence on
  all of us. Don't ever look at local
• television news again. It's all crap. There's no
  news, there's no information. It's negative,
• negative, negative. You look at that, and you
  think the world is coming to an end.
• Television is very dangerous. Because it repeats
  and repeats and repeats our disasters
• instead of our triumphs.
• Ray Bradbury - Paris Voice 1990

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3 - Political Correctness

• Books are also banned because they offend
  minorities (which can be any group with some
  kind of common link)
• Colored people dont like Little Black Sambo. 
  Burn it.  White people dont feel good about
  Uncle Toms Cabin.  Burn it.  Someones written a
  book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs?  The
  cigarette people are weeping?  Burn the book. 

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Political Correctness

• After World War II, Stalin did much the same
  thing in the Soviet Union, censoring materials
  that threatened Communism while supporting
  writers who depicted the government in a positive
  light.

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Under the leadership of Senator Joseph
McCarthy, an intellectual witch-hunt began to
seek out and eliminate
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beneath the surface of Bradburys narrative is
the theme of nuclear war
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Type of Literature

• the science fiction genre has been used
  throughout history as a way for concerned writers
  to warn - if not prophecy - against forthcoming
  events.

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Dystopian Literature

• This dark sub-genre of science fiction is usually
  known as dystopian literature, and has become a
  popular literary mode in the twentieth century.
  The opposite of the Utopia, the term dystopia
  comes from the Greek word for a bad place, and is
  traditionally set in a harsh society

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Dystopian

• He was able to accurately depict the
  intellectually dangerous trends of his times,
  while making startling observations about the
  future.

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As you read

• What we find in this novel is that without books
  people are kept ignorant and unknowing, so much
  so that they are unaware even of their own
  history and governmental workings. Living with in
  this vacuum of information leaves people unable
  to question ANYTHING. As we read Fahrenheit 451
  reflect on what you have learned about our own
  history of censorship and more importantly the
  current threats of censorship.

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• WRITING POINT
• List three reasons if you had power over people
  why their literacy could threaten your power.
• DISCUSSION POINT
• How is knowledge power? How do we benefit from
  ideas and learning different points of view?
• DISCUSSION POINT
• Why would those in control of a society want to
  suppress knowledge? Why are ideas dangerous?
• DISCUSSION POINT
• How do books represent us (mankind)?
• DISCUSSION POINT
• Is there an idea you would be willing to die for?
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Ray
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• Why would those in control of a society want to
  suppress knowledge? Why are ideas dangerous?
• Provide examples in todays society in which this
  has happened. What are/were they trying to
  suppress? What are/were the consequences of
  these actions?

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• Discuss the role of family in the characters
  lives, particularly in relation to the tv parlor
  families, and their nature and function. How
  can this view of family be related to todays
  society? What fear did Bradbury have for the role
  of family life in the future, and what aspects
  have come true? Provide specific examples from
  literature, current events, history, or personal
  experience.

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• What messages or themes is Bradbury trying to
  impart on his audience? What things in society
  is he commenting on? Choose one of these
  messages/themes and discuss how they are visible
  in todays society.
• Provide specific examples from current events,
  literature, history, science, or personal
  experience.