Mr. Kyle Goodwin
AP English Literature and Composition
26 August 2014
Feminist Criticism of Fahrenheit 451
One can think about it biblically, logically, scientifically, or otherwise; it doesn’t matter, for all trains of thought end in the same conclusion: for as long as there has been man, there has been woman. The concept of this intrinsic relationship, however, cannot be said to hold the same truth when the word “man” is replaced with the words “women’s rights.” women weren’t always treated the way they are now, and they definitely haven’t always held the same societal role that they currently do in the United States. It hasn’t even been a hundred years since women gained the right to vote here in America, for example. wAs a result, it’s really helpful to be more specific as far as setting when discussing anything regarding femism (the advocacy of women’s rights) or feminist criticism (the evaluation of female characters within a text to see whether or not they satisfy traditional, stereotypical gender roles, and ponder the author’s reason for taking whichever path he or she chose to take with those female characters). (PC).
In order to really understand what Ray Bradbury was trying to tell the reader about the role of women in Fahrenheit 451, it’s really helpful to gain a basic overview of the historical and personal context in which it was written. Born in 1920 (the year of the institution of women’s sufferage) Bradbury was really thrown right into a period where women’s rights were still considered a controversial topic in the United States (not to say that they no longer are, the issue just isn’t anywhere near as sensitive now as it was back then). In fact, Bradbury began to put together his ideas for the novel somewhere around 1947, right after the end of World War II, PC during which the issues involving women came in abundance: was it acceptable for women to remarry if their husbands died in the war? Should women be fighting in the war? Should they be fighting on the front lines?