1. Introduction to Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451

2. Genre and a Few Questions:
What is science fiction?
Have you read or watched any science fiction stories?
What was the story or stories and what was it or they about?
What function(s) do you think science fiction serves in our society?

3. Genre and a Few Questions:
Some Answers:
Science fiction is a form of fiction that incorporates some element of the future or future technology.
I’ve Seen “V for Vendetta.”
Some think that one of the purposes science fiction provides is an opportunity to look into a possible future and warn our society away from going down a destructive path.

4. Genre and a Few Questions:
With our author, Ray Bradbury, he uses science fiction for this purpose, to warn us and to try and prevent our society from going down a negative path.
This type of specific genre that often overlaps with science fiction is called Dystopia.
Dystopia is a story in which we see or read about a future that has gone horribly wrong based on trends that we see in society today.

5. Genre and a Few Questions:
A few more questions:
What is censorship?
Why do people in authority try to impose this rigid control?
What do you think some of the effects would be if we, as a society, allowed the type of social control?
As you consider this last question, imagine a world in which this takes place. What would it be like? What would the people be like? What would the government be like?
Once you’ve thought about this, describe what this society would be like if we visited it.

6. Bradbury’s Purposes with 1984
The author’s purposes in writing this novel are several some of them include but are not limited to the following:
To sound alarm bells with readers about what would happen if we as a society embrace censorship and the kind of thinking that results from a society that has embraced this.
To encourage the awakening of critical thought and thinking for one’s self instead of conforming to what everyone else is thinking.
To encourage action in the present to prevent this dystopia from occurring in the future.

7. A Passage Please read the first four paragraphs of the novel.
Who are the characters that are introduced so far?
What are they like?
What is the world that the characters live in like?
How does what you’ve read fit with the genres of science fiction and dystopia? How does what you’ve read fit with the idea of censorship?