and its portrayal in fahrenheit 451

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
~Confucius

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Overview


Throughout the novel, the characters and readers of Ray Bradbury's, Fahrenheit 451, are presented with the concepts of knowledge and ignorance, and Guy Montag's evolution from one end of the spectrum to the other. Merriam Webster says that knowledge is, "the fact or condition of being aware of something." Another definition for it is, "the circumstance or condition of apprehending truth or fact through reasoning."
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In Webster's definition, ignorance is, "lack of knowledge, education, or awareness." In the society in which Montag and his wife lived in, it was not books that were illegal, really, but it was the knowledge that was housed inside of those books that the government didn't want it's people to have access to. In the attempted utopia, the government didn't want its citizens to be aware of the world around them, because ultimately, knowledge and awareness leads to thinking and wondering and questioning. 
In Bradbury's dystopia, the citizens were forced to live ignorantly because if enough questions were asked, then somewhere down the line, someone would ask, "What is my life? What am I doing here?" With those questions at hand, people would start kindling their own knowledge, and would start having purpose, and one thing that is proven in this novel, is that a hungry idea has the power to, brick by brick, take down a nation.
Some questions posed to the audience in this book are, "Is ignorance really bliss?", "Can knowledge help you live a happier life?", and "How can the act of knowing be a burden and an ease?"