Overall, it could be said that power is used in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 to make the average person passive and apathetic, and that power is maintained by keeping people this way. In the novel, Guy Montag's society keeps its citizens apathetic by burning books and encouraging the mindless consumption of media. By doing so, society also effectively bans free thought and critical thinking, as reading and books can be seen as vehicles for an active, curious, independent, and potentially disobedient mind. By ensuring that the average person does not think for him or herself and dumbly consumes media, the state also guarantees that no one will question or oppose it. In that case, we can see that, in the novel, power is primarily used to keep people ignorant, as independent thinkers are deemed to be too dangerous for the good of society.
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