Fahrenheit 451 - Theme

I think the theme of the book was a bit tricky to define exactly as a theme. I see the theme as a sort of warning by Ray Bradbury against allow the government to gain enough power that they could begin to control the public so easily. Though this book was mainly about burning books I felt there were a lot of underlying ideas as far as warnings went. Bradbury warned against such a powerful government with his example in the book. As Guy was being chased by the hound he jumped in to the river, the hound lost his scent. But the government, not wanting to look bad, seeing as it had woken everyone up in the middle of the night so that they could watch. Rather than saying Guy got away they instead gave the hound orders to kill some random dude who happened to be out for a midnight stroll. I felt this was a warning against a too powerful government as well as against a really secretive government as the one in this book seemed to be. The second warning I thought was a little less obvious was the one about technology. In the story people seem to work for and towards technology. Mildred tells guy they simply must buy a fourth TV wall, it seems as if all she has to work for is another TV wall rather than anything more substantial. Bradbury is saying that rather than becoming so fascinated with technology as many people do that we should use it and use it to help our selves but under no way should we become slaves to it as they have in the story. Technology should always be used to further people not to control them. The hound is another example where people have began to be afraid of their own creations, scared that the technology behind the device is smarted than we are. But yeah there are lots of warnings.