There are many themes throughout Fahrenheit 451. One theme is the importance of knowledge and unimportance of ignorance. The people in the story have no idea how important knowledge is because they do not read books, learn important information, or even better their intelligence with any worthwhile information. The people have the minds of children, but more so the minds of ignorant people who have lived their entire lives without learning anything. They are living this way because they do not necessarily have the right to pursue knowledge. They can pursue knowledge just not in books, and Faber explains this to Montag. He says “Most of us can’t rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities in the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends… the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book” (Bradbury, 86.) Technically the people can search for knowledge, but they do not have the potential to get it anywhere except for books. And they do not have books to get the knowledge from, so they have no options left but to be ignorant. Then they satisfy people’s urge to gain knowledge by giving them useless facts to memorize. This is an awful system that nothing good can come from, and Bradbury uses this to educate.
The author clearly understands human nature. Everyone is born in ignorance, and we try to conquer it over time. We believe we conquer it when we gain new information, and become more intelligent. Bradbury shows that it is human nature to want knowledge. The society knows this in the story, and they replace important knowledge with tedious facts. Politics are superimposed by appearances. Children learn nothing from their parents, and everything from parlors. This book shows a good deal of human nature because it is based on the real world, and interpreted into a future world where almost a lot of aspects of life are completely different.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.
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