Censorship Limits Ideas | Teen Ink

Censorship Limits Ideas

March 5, 2015
By ABIGAIL.S PLATINUM, Trenton, Ohio
ABIGAIL.S PLATINUM, Trenton, Ohio
37 articles 3 photos 35 comments

Favorite Quote:
"only you can start a change you want"


Do you ever think what if things were different, what if the government limited and censored things like books or movies? Well in the book Fahrenheit 451 thats what is happening, books are being burned and things are censored. Censorship as is pointed out in this book can limite ideas. It can lead to unhappy people,censorship takes away thoughts and ideas,and leads to people rejecting what they don’t understand all of which happen in this book. So this essay will tell you how censorship limits ideas.


The first topic is censorship can lead to unhappy people.“I don’t know.  We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy.  Something’s missing.  I looked around.  The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I’d burned in ten or twelve years.  So I thought books might help” (bradbury) because of the censorship people might have the things they need but they don't have the thoughts and feelings they need to be happy. When montag meets clarisse in the beginning of the book she asks him one thing before she goes home which was if montag was happy. At first he thinks yes im happy but as the night goes on he knows that he is not. mildred does not come out and say she is unhappy but her actions say that she really is not happy. She overdoses on sleeping pills which is a sure sign of her unhappiness.so as you can see censorship can make people unhappy, sad and even a bit lonly.

Next part is that censorship takes aways thoughts and ideas. “Let you alone! That’s all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”(bradbury) in this story everyone seems to care about things and worry about things that don’t really matter. People are not talking or bothered with anything really important. people don't pay attention to it but thats what is going on.“It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No, no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us”(bradbury) this shows that the ideas and thoughts that are in the books are being censored throughout every thing they try to get the ideas and feelings to be gone and for the most part they are all gone. They don’t just take away and burn books but take out the ideas in them that could be on tv or a radio.“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.” (bradbury) there is something that the people who have the books want to protect and the government and whoever is censoring is trying to get rid of and what it is is important since someone was going to die because she believed its important but the thoughts that they had in them where not wanted and so they burned and got rid of whatever had the thoughts in them.

The last point in this essay is that because of censorship people just reject what they dont understand.“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?” (bradbury) they were more scared and feared the thoughts brought in books so they burned the books.“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”(bradbury) there is something that the people who have the books want to protect and the government and whoever is censoring is trying to get rid of. What it is is important since someone was going to die because she believed its important but the thoughts that they had in them where not wanted and so they burned and got rid of whatever had the thoughts in them.“We can’t burn these.  I want to look at them, at least once”(bradbury) because of the law he has to burn books but he wants to look at them and understand them. So censorship makes it to where people just reject what they dont understand. They didn’t understand clarisse so they called her anti social and didn’t care when she died.

So as you can see censorship can limit ideas which is the theme of the story Fahrenheit 451. Censorship can make people unhappy, can take away thoughts and ideas and can make us reject what we don't understand. Instead of people being happy and free thinking, people just don't care about much and stop paying attention to things that are important. Censorship takes the ideas they don't want or accept and makes them all go away which truly limits ideas. There is more to the everyday things in our lives there is more to books than just a story. this story shows us a live of censorship and shows how sad it really would be. So, books and the ideas in them are important and if fully gone like in the story we could lose the ideas in them not just the stories they tell.


The author's comments:

This was inspired by the book fahrenheit 451. The story was inspiring and so amazingly written and really makes you think about the way we live today.


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This article has 2 comments.


ellwist SILVER said...
on Apr. 6 2015 at 8:51 am
ellwist SILVER, Surabaya, Other
6 articles 2 photos 85 comments

Favorite Quote:
"They only let you be this happy when they're preparing to take something from you." -Khaled Hosseini, the Kite Runner.

A well-thought out look at 451. I'm not sure if censorship really does lead to creative sterility (its a sign of it but I'm not certain if it's a step towards it), but what I've found is that the urge to create is usually more powerful than the one to repress, and I think that's what books like 451, the Hunger Games and other dystopian novels (excluding 1984, but you could make an argument of that one too) are all trying to say. Great thought piece.

on Mar. 30 2015 at 7:24 pm
Allen. PLATINUM, Palo Alto, California
32 articles 9 photos 525 comments

Favorite Quote:
[i]No matter how much people try to put you down or make you think other things about yourself, the only person you can trust about who you really are is you[/i] -Crusher-P

This is a very good overview of Fahrenheit 451. It's certainly a wonderful book on censorship and how harmful it can be. I like your quotes here, but I wish they flowed better into the rest of your writing.