Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 has been considered by many to be a book about censorship. The censorship is represented in the book by the burning of books, however, there are other themes, symbols, and ideas that are present in Fahrenheit 451. One theme that ties Fahrenheit 451 together with another story is an allusion to The tower of Babel, one of the most well-known stories from the book of Genesis. In Fahrenheit 451, there is a wall that separates society into two parts, one being “the dark” which is poor and illiterate, while “the bright” being wealthy and educated.
The wall separating these two groups represents the separation caused by the building of The Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9. After God had created man he commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, but after a time people wanted to reign over all others so they built a tower with an eye toward heaven so they could storm it and take it for their own. One day as people worked on this tower, God came down and confounded their languages because all men were speaking the same language.
This separation caused by The tower of Babel gave birth to many different languages and people groups around the world. Fahrenheit 451 takes this idea of separation caused by language and applies it to societies being separated by wealth rather than speech. While not having read Fahrenheit 451, readers are left with enough knowledge about the book that they can infer that both Fahrenheit 451 and The Tower Of Babel are about society being divided against itself due to a lack of knowledge.
The novel Fahrenheit 451 is written in first person point-of-view allowing for an interesting perspective because the narrator which has no name is never referred to as “I” or “me”. At one point Montag asks who he is specifically talking too, but Montag ends up answering his own question. Montag says, “And these book-mobiles…they’re for the city people, not us…How can anyone read books? ” This is ironic because Fahrenheit 451 is about people living in an illiterate society that doesn’t know anything about books or their contents, but Fahrenheit 451 itself is a book full of knowledge.
As the novel progresses the narrator seems to be delving deeper and deeper into his inner thoughts allowing readers to get closer and closer to him as he gets closer and closer to discovering himself. This idea of self discovery ties Fahrenheit 451 with The Tower Of Babel because both stories are about individuals (or societies) trying to discover themselves without assistance from others. While Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t directly state if there was ever a person named Mildred, it becomes easier to infer that there was a person who was important to Montag.
Fahrenheit 451 starts off with Montag dreaming of his wife Mildred because he misses her and wants her back. However, as the book progresses the relationship between Montag and Mildred deteriorates further and further until they are barely speaking. The marriage of Mildred and Montag is analogous to The tower of Babel because it shows how people can be separated by language barriers even in relationships with one another.
In Fahrenheit 451, society has been divided for so long that they do not know how to speak or communicate with each other effectively anymore which leads to a great breakdown between those who have knowledge and those who do not have knowledge making them virtually useless from one another. The religious aspect of Fahrenheit 451 ties it to The tower of Babel because in Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s captain talks about how the Bible is full of “bad” words because God killed his own people.
This idea that the Bible has bad words can be explained by the story of The tower Of Babel , which explains why there are so many different languages around the world. The book Fahrenheit 451 shares this theme with The Tower Of Babel because both stories share a common message about society being divided against itself due to certain things causing them not to communicate well with one another. Fahrenheit 451 also takes this same theme and applies it to modern society creating an allusion between Fahrenheit 451 and Genesis 11:1–9.
Fahrenheit 451 is a novel that takes place in a dystopian world. In it, people are constantly avoiding thinking for themselves and consuming mass media to achieve happiness. Firemen, as they’re called, come around to houses with books and burn them down because the government has declared them to be harmful. The protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, Montag, begins a journey where he starts questioning what society wants from him and what firemen truly do.
He meets another fireman named Faber who helps Montag make sense of life – at this point – through history and art, not mass media which only allows things like “television” to exist today (Bradbury). The tower itself was built so humans could reach God on Mount Olympus. The people of the city were told that if they built it, God would give them their requests. However, when they finished building it they became angry because God would not comply.
Instead, the people used the tower to create a new language so everyone could understand each other and live together in peace with one another. The book Fahrenheit 451 alludes to this story through the firemen’s mission of burning books. Fahrenheit 451 “is about how mass media reduces the quality of life” (Bradbury). Montag comes home from work during his shift as a fireman and turns on “television.
He hears two men talking about how, in comparison to previous years’ celebrations, this year’s will be better; Fahrenheit 451 is making a statement about how mass media is not living up to what it used to be, and it’s becoming even more commercialized. Fahrenheit 451 argues that mass media consumption lowers the quality of life because it makes people only care about the moment instead of thinking about why they’re watching television or reading.
It makes them forget what happened yesterday and not think about the future; Fahrenheit 451 claims that this lack of knowledge will lead society into oblivion. Fahrenheit 451 tells readers things like “the bookpeople…had been gathering in little groups all over town” (Bradbury). The firemen are sent around to burn these houses down because having them leads people away from happiness through consumption. This parallels with the story of The Tower Of Babel where people are building a tower to get closer to God.
Fahrenheit 451 is saying that the only thing people should be getting close to is each other, not some idea of perfection they can never reach because it does not exist. Fahrenheit 451 tells readers that humans need to rely on themselves and build their own ideas for what life should be like instead of trying to follow society’s rules about happiness through consumption. Both Fahrenheit 451 and The Tower Of Babel use different methods in conveying their messages, but they both have opposing views about why consuming mass media leads away from true happiness.
