PARANOIA, AGENCY AND STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN SPARK'S THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE AND BRADBURY'S FAHRENHEIT 451

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.