Abstract:
This thesis argues that Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Ray
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 reject undemocratic governments and institutions during the
Cold War era. Both novels were written during the Cold War era, a period full of
paranoia, loss of agency and individuality, and fear of being watched and put under
surveillance. This research first provides a contextual framework for the Cold War era in
both UK and USA and argues that in countries, institutions and organizations minimized
freedom and seeded fear and paranoia. The novels present symbolic resistance to the
Cold War suspension of democratic rights that took an institutional step and used
propaganda as a tool for social control. Fahrenheit 451 is against restricting publication
and media institutions. It shows the epiphany of Guy Montag from a brainwashed
firefighter who burns books to an individual who starts to realize the reality that the
government has fabricated the state's history. Through the power of storytelling, the
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie exposes the propaganda used during the Cold War and its
influence on the creation of docile bodies through institutions. This thesis argues that
Bradbury and Spark not only question the despotism and totalitarianism of the
Communist Soviet Union, but they also castigate infringement of civil rights and
democratic such as censorship under surveillance which occurred in the US and UK
during the Cold War. It also shows how the two novels use fiction and intelligence
techniques, such as propaganda, to counteract forces of state power and defy the
generated paranoia as a result of being under constant watch. Therefore, the novels
struggle for freedom, democracy, and regaining individual agency by opposing
institutionalization.
