Setting Books on Fire: Literary Representations of Book Burning in Auto-da-Fé and Fahrenheit 451

Abstract

This thesis studies the literary representations of book burning in two twentieth century novels: Auto-da-Fé by Elias Canetti and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Book burning is a cultural and historical phenomenon which is analyzed in this thesis in its literary representations in order to understand the significance of this act within various contexts.

The first chapter of the thesis analyzes Elias Canetti’s Auto-da-Fé which was published in 1935 and situates itself within the context of the interwar years. The end of the Weimar era and the rise to power of totalitarian regimes in Europe has a significant impact on Canetti’s representation of book burning and on the significance of this act within the narrative of the novel. In Auto-da-Fé, book burning marks the end of an important period of European history and represents a moment of liberation to the protagonist Peter Kien who joins his library in the flames.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is the focus of the second chapter of the thesis. The dystopian science-fiction was published in 1953, in a postwar context, and deals with book burning as a totalitarian tool for imposing ideology. Moreover, key elements of the Cold War such as censorship and the rise of mass culture are addressed in the novel’s depictions of book burning. The last section of this chapter approaches book burning as a subversive tool of resistance in Bradbury’s novel and studies its use as a way to preserve culture rather than destroy it. The third chapter of the thesis is a comparative study of the analyses made in the previous chapters. Auto-da-Fé and Fahrenheit 451 are read and analyzed together in order to uncover the similarities and differences in their representations of book burning.

The multiple analyses of book burning reveal the various ways in which this act can be interpreted depending on the historical circumstances and narrative elements of the novels which represent it. This thesis concludes by tackling a recent instance of book burning in Lebanon and reflecting upon the state of this practice in the twenty-first century.