My daughter teaches 11th grade English literature to French students in Rennes, France. Their curriculum includes Ray Bradbury’s acclaimed “Fahrenheit 451.”
Bradbury first published “Fahrenheit 451” in 1954, the year I was born. This dystopian novel, inspired partly by book burnings in Nazi Germany, imagined a future where all books were banned. The government sought to take attention away from wars they were waging by destroying independent, critical thinking. Firemen ferreted out remaining books and their owners, and burned them and their houses to the ground. Instead of books, people had mindless entertainment, the “talking walls” of the house where the TV “family” substituted for real interactions.
Over Christmas break, as my daughter graded papers on “Fahrenheit 451,” I read through some of the students’ responses to her prompt, “What suggestions would Bradbury give us today if he saw our current society, and current day American society?”
Some students noted and criticized some of the entertainment technology of today that Bradbury had foreseen: gargantuan TVs, earbuds that shut out the world in favor of entertainment and addictive video games.
Many students addressed censorship. They understood the relevance to what is happening today. One student wrote, “The thing is that Bradbury’s future is starting to be true. Books are getting canceled, and this is bad. He would want us to go down the street and fight for our right, for the talent of auters to be respected, to let us be free to think.”
Another student noted, “If Bradbury saw our society and especially the American society under Trump, he would be devastated. His first advice would probably be to stop banning books from schools just because they talk about racism, history or feminism.”
More than one student talked about fear. “If Ray Bradbury could see our society, especialy the American one, he would warn us about the path we are taking. He would refer to his own book in which he’s talking about censorship and the lack of choises and freedom. These things are becoming more and more numbrous and casual which is very dangerous and even frightening.”
This is a literature class: they are not studying politics or history. Yet they read and pay attention to the news. They have noticed and understood the dystopia America has become.
Bradbury died when Barack Obama was president and never had to endure the many horrors Trump has wrought, including banning books, controlling and suppressing the media, attacking individuals who speak truth to power and eroding public education.
“Fahrenheit 451” ends with nuclear annihilation. Let’s hope Bradbury wasn’t that prescient.
Julia Freeman-Woolpert of Concord is retired from the Disability Rights Center, where she worked as the Outreach Advocacy Director. She continues to mentor and advocate for people with disabilities as well advocating for peace as a member of the Friends Committee on National Legislation Concord Advocacy Team.