![]() Ideas lead to differences, and differences lead to conflict, which is avoided at all costs. ![]() There is no room for the development of individual identity and ideas. Having disregarded books and the knowledge contained in them, people have become ignorant, addicted to mass media and the constant barrage of sights and sounds that never stop to allow one to process and think. Set in a future vision of America, society has become an empty shell of humanity. Though the story opens with an image of Montag appearing to relish the feeling of burning things, it’s not long before he meets Clarisse and is struck by how different she is from everyone else he knows. The story’s protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman in a society where firemen no longer put out fires but rather start them in homes known to be hiding books. Supporting themes centered around censorship as a means to control society and the destructive nature of technology are used to amplify the overarching theme. The overarching theme of Fahrenheit 451 explores the struggle between man’s desire for knowledge and individuality in a society that expects ignorance and conformity. Major Themes in Fahrenheit 451 Knowledge and Individuality vs. Censorship as a Means to Control Society.It rained so hard that the flames kept going out, and the fire brigade had to pour petrol on the fire to get it burning properly. Later he described this dark day with the word “Begräbniswetter” (funeral weather). ![]() Many of the vilified and persecuted writers had already left Germany and gone into exile.Įrich Kästner stood watching unrecognised as his book Fabian was consumed by the flames. With the words “Against decadence and moral decay! For discipline and decency in the family and the nation! I commit to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Ernst Glaeser and Erich Kästner”, Kästner’s novel “Fabian” was tossed onto the fire.Īs well as Kästner, the blacklisted authors included Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Heinrich and Klaus Mann, Rosa Luxemburg, August Bebel, Bertha von Suttner and Stefan Zweig. Before the books were burnt, the organisers sent out what they called their “Twelve Theses”, which were to be read at the book-burnings in every town. ![]() The books to be burnt were chosen according to blacklists made by the librarian Wolfgang Herrmann, which were then used to plunder private bookshelves, public libraries and academic collections. On, members of the Nazi German Student Union and their professors burnt books as part of a nationwide action “against the un-German spirit”. In the middle of the square on, Nazi students burnt the works of hundreds of independent authors, journalists, philosophers and academics. They will ultimately burn people as well. Two bronze plates also set in the ground contain information and an inscription with the warning: The Israeli artist Micha Ullman designed the library memorial, which was unveiled on 20 March 1995. Symbolically, the underground bookshelves have space for around 20,000 books, as a reminder of the 20,000 books that went up in flames here on at the behest of the Nazis. What was lost and burnt were the books by those who the Nazis ostracised and persecuted, who had to leave the country and whose stories were no longer allowed to be told. Underground, almost out of sight, no books, empty white shelves, directly under the Bebelplatz. When you get closer, you see a glass plate set in the paving stones, and below it an underground room with empty bookshelves. When you stroll across Bebelplatz you often come across people staring at the same spot on the ground.
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