Pleasure to Burn: Violence as Madness in "Fahrenheit 451"

Abstract

Critics, teachers, and students routinely idolize the main character of the 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 as a hero who valiantly fights against the conformity of his dystopian society. The author, Ray Bradbury, wrote the book having seen Hitler come to power by destroying a nation and having witnessed McCarthyism crush the individuality of the American people. Bradbury‘s book in fact both critiques societies that give individuals too much power and societies that refuse individuals any power.