Fahrenheit 451- Why the Firemen MUST burn the book?

Question

Why the firemen must burn the book and not let the people read it?

Answer 1

Because books are dangerous; they make people think, and the government doesn't want that to happen:

"Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears."

"It is obvious that Beatty has spent a considerable portion of his life not just reading but passionately absorbed in books. His facility with literary quotations by itself demonstrates this. The first place to look for an answer to this question is in his statements to Montag about why books are dangerous and worthless. For example, he tells Montag that books do not give definite answers, that they contradict themselves and one another, and that different people can “use” them to make absolutely contradictory points. Generalizing from these statements, we can infer that he has become frustrated with books because they don’t have one stable meaning. They are too complex and can be interpreted in multiple ways, so nobody can really be said to have mastered them. Beatty may dislike books because he wants to be the one in control of the answers. This inference can be connected to the major theme of “The Sieve and the Sand”: the process of reading may be likened to a person trying to fill a bucket that has holes in its bottom; it may be frustrating and does not guarantee the reader access to a tangible meaning. While the sieve and sand image is used to describe the frustrations Montag experiences, it might provide clues to Beatty’s frustrations as well."


"Fahrenheit 451 doesn’t provide a single, clear explanation of why books are banned in the future. Instead, it suggests that many different factors could combine to create this result. These factors can be broken into two groups: factors that lead to a general lack of interest in reading and factors that make people actively hostile toward books. The novel doesn’t clearly distinguish these two developments. Apparently, they simply support one another.

The first group of factors includes the popularity of competing forms of entertainment such as television and radio. More broadly, Bradbury thinks that the presence of fast cars, loud music, and advertisements creates a lifestyle with too much stimulation in which no one has the time to concentrate. Also, the huge mass of published material is too overwhelming to think about, leading to a society that reads condensed books (which were very popular at the time Bradbury was writing) rather than the real thing.
The second group of factors, those that make people hostile toward books, involves envy. People don’t like to feel inferior to those who have read more than they have. But the novel implies that the most important factor leading to censorship is the objections of special-interest groups and “minorities” to things in books that offend them. Bradbury is careful to refrain from referring specifically to racial minorities—Beatty mentions dog lovers and cat lovers, for instance. The reader can only try to infer which special-interest groups he really has in mind.
As the Afterword to Fahrenheit 451 demonstrates, Bradbury is extremely sensitive to any attempts to restrict his free speech; for instance, he objects strongly to letters he has received suggesting that he revise his treatment of female or black characters. He sees such interventions as essentially hostile and intolerant—as the first step on the road to book burning.
Knowledge versus Ignorance
Montag, Faber, and Beatty’s struggle revolves around the tension between knowledge and ignorance. The fireman’s duty is to destroy knowledge and promote ignorance in order to equalize the population and promote sameness. Montag’s encounters with Clarisse, the old woman, and Faber ignite in him the spark of doubt about this approach. His resultant search for knowledge destroys the unquestioning ignorance he used to share with nearly everyone else, and he battles the basic beliefs of his society."

Answer 2

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Fahrenheit 451- Why the Firemen MUST burn the book?
Why the firemen must burn the book and not let the people read it?

Answer 3

Because they were afraid that the people may get "smart" by reading. They didn't want the people to be able to outsmart or outwit the government, they wanted them to follow their rules.

Answer 4

They might learn something contrary to the party line and become discontented with the status quo.

Answer 5

so that the people dont get intelligent

Answer 6

thank you for all the answers.