Well in order to answer the question "How does this novel reflect the history, behavior, and social issues of the time period and setting?" I first have to say that this is a futuristic fantasy novel (my kind of book!). Because of the whole future setting and the fact that the place is fictional America, I can not correctly judge if the history, behavior, and social issues are correctly represented. Instead from what I understand of Bradbury's world, he created a twist in history with the censorship of books and all entertainment. He also eliminated all behavior and social issues by all of the citizens being mellow, nonthinking, and unstimulated. The only issues the world has is the people who break the law and read and collect books. Those people, their houses, and most importantly their books are eliminated through fire (Bradbury 35). The futuristic world for everyday normal citizens is calm and there isn't a need for any strenuous thoughts or activities. A third atomic war started (Bradbury 125), but the citizens feel that it is okay because the bombs wouldn't fall where they live and the government will take care of it. They don't have any explicative opinions on the war because they have been brainwashed to not be observant or to care enough to take control and do things for themselves. That is a scary future for me to think about. I enjoy my free will and my First Amendment rights and would like to retain them, and forget about the idea of not being able to read books and burning all of my Star Trek books! I couldn't live in a kind of world like that (well, unless I was brainwashed, because then I wouldn't know any better).
The book's symbolic significance is the fact that our future could turn out like Bradbury's. The readers of Fahrenheit 451 realize the amount of censorship in the present day. While it definitely not as bad as the world in Fahrenheit, but we still have too much censorship considering Americans are supposed to have the freedom of speech. See the theme post for more on censorship. This book allows the issue of censorship to be a real thing in the public eye, even fifty years after it was published.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.
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