The Idea of Censorship

Throughout the reading of Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury does a great job in conveying the main idea of censorship and the overall idea of any form of literature was not approved in this time period. The idea of censorship shaped the entire book in numerous ways. The way Bradbury uses censorship dramatically shows the power of literature and the power reading has to a society as a whole. Bradbury uses the rhetorical strategies of diction, imagery and repetition to convey the central idea that censorship was a huge problem in the making of Fahrenheit 451. Diction was greatly used throughout the text to help convey the overall theme of the passage because of the unique word choice usage the characters used throughout the text. This helped convey the main idea because the characters used strong diction in conveying the theme of the book. The characters use many words that, they tend to create different meanings which compares to us knowing the actual definition of the word. “A minute later, three White Cartoon Clowns chopped of each other’s limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter.” (Bradbury 90) The unique diction is shown strongly throughout the entire reading and greatly helps mold the reading together. Imagery was used several times in the reading to help convey the main idea and to help us create an image of what the author was trying to persuade overall. “ Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopey you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you.” (Bradbury 17) This creates imagery because Mildred is so focused on technology, that we create an image in our head thinking maybe technology is taking over and is clearly getting in the way of our daily lives. This shows that Mildred truly focuses on other things in life that are unimportant, how easy it is to get carried away and how technology truly pays a huge impact in society then and still does today. The author uses many examples of repetition throughout Fahrenheit 451 to grab the reader's attention by repeating specific words and phrases over and over again. By the author doing this, it helps pull out the most important information and set it aside to show how important it was to the passage as a whole. “The jet bombers going over, going over, going over, one two, one two, six of them, nine of them, twelve of them, one and one and one and another and another.” (Bradbury 11) The author repeats himself because he is emphasizing on the jet bombers and how many there is overall. The author does this because we are drawing our overall attention to this specific spot. The author is going into great detail and is emphasizing on this specific part so we must know this is an important piece to the story overall. Ray Bradbury does a great job in conveying his main idea of censorship and the idea that technology is going to take over society as a whole by using rhetorical strategies in conveying his overall idea that he has on the two subjects. Bradbury does well going into great detail and setting his main focus on specific ideas that override the story as a whole. The author does this in a dramatic way because the issues he talked about as a whole are relevant to society today in the year 2019.

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