Fahrenheit 451: How Powerful Is Knowledge?

How Powerful is Knowledge?

As once said by Francis Bacon, “knowledge is power”. In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, Montag finds out the power that comes with knowledge. Montag receives knowledge, which causes him to question everything he knows, from his happiness to everyone around him. He realizes that virtually the entire population is ignorant and just think that books are a kind of poison. The book follows Montag’s physical and emotional journey towards understanding himself. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses books as a symbol to demonstrate the thematic idea of knowledge is power to express his fear about censorship going too far.

“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it.”(Bradbury 88). In this quote, Beatty is at Montag’s house telling him how destructive books are and explaining why books are banned. Beatty is trying to convey that books can hurt people by encouraging diversity,

Here, Faber is in his house telling Montag about how books bring life into the world. Faber is letting Montag know that books are important not because they are books, but because of their meaning. As difficult as they can be to deal with, the pores are the perfect imperfections needed to make the world great. Bradbury shows that books and knowledge are vital and that censoring books robs the world of individuality and freedom.

“Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he’s the lord of all creation.”(Bradbury 143). Beatty now says that knowledge is too powerful, so powerful that it drives people like Montag(who receive knowledge) mad. Knowledge is powerful, and some like Beatty believe that the population should have this power taken away. Bradbury uses Beatty to represent knowledge is power, and that getting rid of knowledge would make the world into a boring place without diversity, individuality, or