* are there are any current situations in the world that relate to the novel? what are they, and how do they relate? does the novel shed any light on

Sadly, there are current situations in the world right now that relate to Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451. In this novel, books are banned from reading. All books are burned. This is similar to what is going on in many communist countries. China, for example is banned from reading or having a copy of the Holy Bible. An example of this shown is how a Chinese man, Lai Kwong-keung, a 38-year-old Hong Kong businessman, was detained by police for transporting 33,000 copies of the New Testament to Fuqing City in the Fujian Province last year according to National Review Online. He may even face the death penalty for this. This relates to how Guy Montag tried to get books and was almost killed, but escaped. To me, countries that ban books, especially to do with religion are undeveloped and uncivilized countries.

The novel sheds some light on how this problem in China can be fixed. It suggests that a large group of people should fight against the government, or to spread the information about the book orally from generation to generation. The good news is that not all the countries in the world are like China. The president of the United States of America, Mr. Bush, has gone to China in hopes of releasing Lai Kwong-keung and allowing the people of China to worship in peace. Hopefully there will be more freedom in reading any books in the future. When the Nazi’s were in power, they banned the Holy Bible and burned any copy they could. Luckily they were forced to stop. The whole world should be forced to stop banning the Bible right now too.