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Censorship In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

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Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 provides commentary on censorship in a dystopian society, where all books are burned to keep them from the public. The main character Guy Montag is a fireman, who unlike modern firemen in the world created by Bradbury start fires rather than fight them. Montag’s job is to destroy books in an effort to create a permanently censored world. Many critics believe that Bradbury’s novel was written as a reaction to Mccarthyism, an idea that weighed heavily in the 1950s that promoted a complacent society in which everyone was the same and that the book challenged the censorship of books that preached ideas of “socialism, eroticism, and sexuality in the early 1950s”(Zipes). However, Bradbury confirmed years later that his …show more content…

In an effort the drive the mental institution's head nurse to insanity, Murphy finds himself breaking just about every rule implemented at the hospital. Some of his adventures include, intoxicating his peers, inviting prostitutes into the institution, and breaking into a prescription drug cabinet. After its publication in 1962 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest caused an uproar from parents across the nation. It too fell victim to censorship. The novel has been altered many times since its publication, and is pegged as being racist and obscene due to its harsh language, and insubordinate nature. In 1971 the book was challenged by parents due to its "obscene, filthy language," and many demanded that it be removed from the nonrequired American Culture reading list. Throughout the novel African Americans are referred to as “coons,” “boys,” and “niggers”, these are just some of the countless obscenities that are featured in the novel. “In 1974, five residents of Strongsville, Ohio, sued the board of education to remove One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Manchild in the Promised Land from the classroom” (Sova). Both novels were branded as “pornigrafic material” and accused of debauching young minds by “glorifying criminal material”(Sova). This material contributes to the themes that Kesey portrays in

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