Why Did Ray Bradbury Write Fahrenheit 451

Leo Pryor
Ms. Hoblitzell
English 110-01
31 March 2015
What Influenced Ray Bradbury to Write Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury obviously had multiple heavy influences for the writing of Fahrenheit 451. When the Fahrenheit 451 came out in 1953 it quickly became a staple of American literature (“Background to Fahrenheit 451” 1). It was only Bradbury's second novel but what influenced him to write it? Many of the factors involved had to do with the social mood of the 1950s. There was a large amount of paranoia in that time with the Red Scare of Joseph McCarthy happening (1). Some other influences were the classic works that were already in the dystopian genre. The works that Fahrenheit 451 shows influenced it are primarily Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell but it was also influenced by some smaller science fiction stories which Bradbury read (“Bradbury, Ray” 1). Lastly there was an increasing amount of censored words and phrases in the world of literature at the time of Fahrenheit

His trials for communists, which uncovered nothing, are often related to the Salem Witch Trials carried out by the Puritans in Massachusetts (1). The widespread fear McCarthy caused gives much to Fahrenheit 451’s atmosphere as well as the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1). McCarthy made many critics in America thought that the country may slowly be becoming the next Nazi Germany because of the fear that was being driven into everyone’s heads and the mass propaganda the government was issuing (1). Bradbury subscribed to this way of thinking about America’s future and was against what was currently happening in the country (1).The oppression in Fahrenheit 451 that no one seems to notice is clearly supposed to relate to the social climate of the 1950s which Bradbury was heavily influenced by (1). The world of the 1950s helped to shape the world of Fahrenheit