Fahrenheit 451 Vs. Looking Backward - 1560 Words

Fahrenheit 451 vs. Looking Backward In any society, there are bound to be flaws. In both Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy and Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury, major flaws of humanity are highlighted. Both authors discuss many issues we face, and offer ways to improve these issues. Bradbury suggests that society is too conformed, and the government is being hypocritical by telling us to fear a community in which everything is the same while facilitating that very type of place. Everyone in this cookie cutter world that Bradbury describes is identical. He suggests that the solution to this would be to let everyone live the way they want, with the freedom to be themselves and express their opinions. Bellamy argues that in our†¦show more content†¦Many people were unhappy, but chose to live a life of ignorance in order to protect themselves from the harms of the world, and to please the authority. Montag, the protagonist, was perhaps the most unhappy of all, thinking t o himself, â€Å"he was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs† (Bradbury, 9). The underlying meaning of his writing could be interpreted as a jab at communism, considering he wrote his novel in 1953 which was during the early beginnings of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Communism can be defined as a theory advocating for a culture in which all property is publicly owned and each person is given a rationed pay according to their needs. In Bradbury’s futuristic utopia, people have no privacy and everyone is brainwashed into thinking the same thing. When comparing communism with Bradbury’s society, the similarities are evident. During the Cold War, anyone associated with communism would be scrutinized and excluded from the community, because those were the people who wanted to conform under the government. Bradbury is criticizing a power force that encourages a lack of classes and his prop osed solution is to let the people earn what they deserve. While Bradbury believed that people should not conform under the government rules, Bellamy most likely would have thought that communism would have been a