Context For F451 Flashcards
What was redscare
Fear of communism in US
Brasburys quote that states his book was not really the future but life rn
‘To look into the future but it’s really looking at a reflection of what is already in front of us’
US gov on Bradburys book
investigated him and an FBI file made on him
Irony
Bradbury ‘the book was pointing the finger at Communists too…I don’t care if the FBI spies on be
Context of the burning of Montags house
Equivalent of a gov worker being out of trial by the House Un-American Committee in the 1950s
House Un-American Committee heading were mass spectacles of the media where people would confess and then ‘demonstrate their rehabilitation to prove their allegiance to the new world order to Cold War domestic conformity’
The committees theatrical politics borrowed from spectacle of game shows that came into their heyday with the advert of TV- shows how Cold War politics were connected with mass culture and homogenisation of thought
Context of innocent man killed in Montag’s place
End of McCarthy cases
Bradbury was concerned that the American press ‘voluntarily’ withheld information for ‘patriotic reasons’ so through killing an innocent man in Montag’s case, he had Americans a classic example of why freedom of information should always be respected
The real tragedy of McCarthyism was the effect of ‘us v them’ polarity that was created out of this mass spectacle
Context of HOBOs
HOBOs are similar to ‘Hollywood Ten’ who were unfriendly witnesses who refused to answer the questions of House Un/American Activities on the ground that their first amendments rights protected them from being question on their political beliefs
Seashells reference to
AirPods
Main consumer in F451
Mildred
Contextually why was there a rise of mass culture
Advertising
Social human impact of technology shown in book
Hound
Bradbury on mass technology
Donavon ‘violently opposed to machinery in any form’
What does F451 argue about technology
Power for good but is often used for evil
Tv stats
1945- 10,000 TV set
1950- 5.5 million
Nazi
Book burning
Bradbury said ‘I hated book burners and I loved libraries’
Bomb in book
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
