SOURCE: "Mass Degradation of Humanity and Massive Contradictions in Bradbury's Vision of American in Fahrenheit 451," in No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, edited by Eric S. Rabkin, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, Southern Illinois University Press, 1983, pp. 182-98.

In the following essay, Zipes examines inconsistencies in Bradbury's sociopolitical criticism of post-World War II America in Fahrenheit 451.

Perhaps it is endemic to academic criticism of science fiction to talk in abstractions and haggle over definitions of utopia, dystopia, fantasy, science, and technology. Questions of rhetoric, semiotic codes, structure, motifs, and types take precedence over the historical context of the narrative and its sociopolitical implications. If substantive philosophical comments are made, they tend to be universal statements about humanity, art, and the destiny of the world. Such is the case with Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. As a result, we hear that the novel contains a criticism...