...Carleigh Barringer Honors American Lit. Period 4 October 30th, 2013 Fahrenheit 451 First Draft In the book Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury tells the story of a futuristic society that burns books and interacts with parlor walls. Bradbury’s intentions were not to predict the future, but rather prevent this futuristic society from existing. Throughout the story, Montag is faced with reality while the people around him are oblivious to everything. His wife watches television an extensive amount of time every day. His wife’s friends could care less about their children, and the whole city is ignorant to the war happening. The people in Fahrenheit 451 are totally absorbed by technology, completely disconnected from emotion and utterly unaware of the violence their society portrays, much like our people today. Technology in Fahrenheit 451 distracts and causes people to be oblivious to everything. Mildred, Montag’s wife, cannot seem to remove herself from her parlor room. She sits and interacts with her television for unhealthy periods of time without even realizing it. Mildred cannot seem to be bothered with anything besides playing her part in her TV shows. On page…, it says “______________________________________.” Mildred does not even care about the issue at hand or that she has almost died, all she wants to talk about is her shows. She is indifferent about herself taking a whole bottle of pills. In our world, people are on their phones twenty/four/seven. From personal experience...
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...of the people from Fahrenheit 451 are lack of communication, lack of education, and lack of common sense. There are many possible ways to solve this problem. The way to come up with a solution is to start of easy with everyone. To begin, everyone in the city are able to try upon their skills and knowledge. Then, based on how much they know already, they will be given many tasks for themselves. For example, if someone has never read anything in their life they will be given help for them to begin. Having everyone work at their own pace is more effective than giving people sets of things to do. They will be able to learn and understand more than going at an unsteady pace. Have you ever wonder what is the most important...
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...What if your house was burned down because you did something illegal, like keeping a shelf full of books? This concept, along with others, is displayed throughout the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 is about a utopia gone wrong and converted into a dystopia due to an over-ruling government and a corrupt society where man’s best friend is his TV. One man, named Guy Montag, is a firefighter who burns books for a living, but learns to disagree with the ways of society when he meets a girl named Clarisse McClellan. Although this society sounds a little strange, our society today can relate, but still differ from their idea of a “correct” society. But in the end, both societies have their own views on the way people should...
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...New Historicism: Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury is a well-known author of stories, screenplays, and multiple novels that have left a lasting influence on American fiction. He left legions of devoted readers and a vast oeuvre that, at its best, combined Hobbesian fears with emotionally resonant hopes for his country and for the human race(Weiner 79). Bradbury’s work contained themes stemming from events and circumstances of the 1950’s. Such as the history of past wars, the times of an irrepressible movement of technological developments, and the censoring of offensive material. Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, is a cultural time marker, helping us to locate the past, evaluate the present, and imagine the future (Smolla...
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...Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, was written at the onset of the fifties as a call to the American people to reflect on how the dominant social values of their times were effecting both the lives of individual Americans and their government. Fahrenheit 451 attacks utopian government and focuses on society's foolishness of always being politically correct. (Mogen 113). According to Mogen, Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world in which the American Dream has turned into a nightmare because it has been superficially understood. (Mogen 107) In order to understand Bradley's social critique, it is essential to realize that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 in the wake of World War II and the early days of the Cold War, in a political climate that was increasingly favoring security over the civil liberties of individuals (Mogen 124, 114). Due to the Cold War, Americans continuously felt threatened by the idea of communism and the idea of hostility from communist countries (Mogen 115). Any association with communism would immediately ostracize an American politician (Mogen 115). In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury displays a futuristic utopian society where "the people did not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations." (Mogen 111). About sixty years later, some would argue that our society has been guilty of similar downfalls. (Book Rags) The government in Fahrenheit 451 bans books because they do not appreciate the thoughts books created peoples...
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...Ignorance has lead to some of the world’s most devastating events in history; the Holocaust, World War I, and the Twin Tower attack on the eleventh of September 2001. Consequently, Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury has multiple examples of destruction and how it was caused because of a uniform society. The society in Fahrenheit 451 is constructing itself to lead to a horrific event because citizens are having ignorance towards books and individually as well as ideas. Therefore, individuality is worth fighting for otherwise, the ignorance will lead to prejudice and destruction, which is currently shown in several characters, demonstrating the importance of individuality. Individuality impacts innovation, maintains our identity it’s vital...
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...In the novel, Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury, happiness is not a common emotion seen throughout the book. Instead we see different examples of depression, anger, and fear. Happiness can play an important and necessary role in the lives of these people, as Aristotle once wrote “happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” Fahrenheit 451 is actually about how knowledge can provide happiness. After meeting Clarisse Montag finds himself unable to accept that he has been living his life wrong. Now believing his life is more complete when knowledge is welcomed to it Montag fights against ignorance trying to help others welcome knowledge into their lives. An example, when Mildred's friends...
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...English Finals Essay: Fahrenheit 451 Within the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451, books, knowledge, and literature were all banned or destroyed. This lead to the result of happiness of most of the community but, not to all of the people. One of those people that was against the idea of banning and destroying literature was Faber, an old retired english professor. In a discussion with Guy Montag the protagonist, he explains that there are 3 key things that was missing from the community of Fahrenheit of 451. Those 3 things are “quality information”, “leisure to digest it” and, “the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two”.These key “things” are extremely similar in importance toward both our...
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...Feelings and Knowledge. How do They Contribute to the Society? If you ask someone to define perfect they will probably say something along the lines of “flawless” or “as good as it can possible be”. But if you then research ‘utopia’, a perfect society, you would find that utopia’s literal definition is ‘no place’. Yet only a few people actually pick up on that there is actually no ideal society when looking through the general public’s view. In Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) the protagonist, Guy Montag, caught on that while on the surface flawless communities are universally peaceful, underneath all that there is corruption, power, and overall mayhem. Like its society, the population reflects this by hiding their true feelings and personalities behind layers and layers of lies. And with more people hiding that, people lose knowledge and therefore lose wisdom....
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...Happiness in Fahrenheit 451 The book Fahrenheit 451 is a dark book. The people that live in the city are very awkward towards each other. This is a result of them not truly being happy. The society is very unsocial and spend most of their time watching their 3 wall tv’s. They rarely talk to each other even if they are married. True happiness is when two or more people show compassion for each other. These people can be married, siblings, cousins, family, and neighbors. In modern society true happiness is when a couple gets married or when a family has a reunion. True happiness, is an inner quality. It is a state of mind. If your mind is at peace, you are happy. If your mind is at peace, but you have nothing else, you can be happy. If you...
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...When people overuse technology, it negatively impacts society. This idea is seen in literature, through Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and in today’s society, through “Digital technology can be harmful to your health” by Jia Rui Cook. In the fictional story Fahrenheit 451, the main character Montag experiences many different effects of technology. He realizes how it impacts people and makes them believe strange things, all while recreating their personalities.There are many instances in the book where Montag sees the changes and learns how he is different than the other people who have been affected by the ever so common technologies. At one point in the novel, Montag loses a close friend named Clarisse, who is a very important and relevant...
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...Have you ever wondered if the fictional stories that authors from years ago write come true? Author Ray Bradbury, who wrote Fahrenheit 451, predicted that we would have TV that highers our chances of diseases. He also predicted that we would have earbuds that would hurt our physical health. Plus, Bradbury predicted that we would have technology that can do everything for us with just the tap of the finger. Clearly, Ray Bradbury made predictions about technology that would inflict danger to our health and came to be. Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury writes about ‘walls’ that take away the character’s human traits. In our world today, TV is the equivalent of the walls. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury focuses a lot on the walls that occupy Mildred...
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...A Society Without Progression Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a book about a dystopian society where books are burned and thoughts are censored. The society in Fahrenheit 451 is qualified as dystopian, as everything about it is unpleasant and bad. In the story, the main character, Guy Montag, realizes that the society he is living in is being controlled by censorship and ignorance, preventing people from having their own thoughts or ideas. Throughout the story, Bradbury uses many different literary elements and topics to show his view on society and how it can change. The author compares books to imperfection and weapons, and portrays Montag and society as unhappy and ignorant to demonstrate a theme. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses metaphors...
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...Anthem and Fahrenheit 451 by Ayn Rand and Ray Bradbury, both of the main characters live in societies much different than ours. In Fahrenheit 451, the main character, Guy Montag, lives in a society where reading is considered sin and books are considered illegal. In Anthem, the main character, Equality 7-2521, lives in a society where everyone's lives are decided for them. In this dystopian society, there is also a lack of knowledge due to how Equality 7-2521’s government is. Equality 7-2521’s council basically considers it a sin to learn anything their teachers have not taught them. It is also practically considered sin to ask questions and to be curious. Both of these societies face different problems such as a corrupt and oppressive government, inner conflict, and rebellion. In both books, the oppressive governments restrict learning and keep their society dystopian. In Anthem, Equality 7-2521’s...
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...Shedding Light on a Dark Subject People that attempt suicide don’t want to die, but the pain they experience makes them think there isn’t a way out. These people feel only despair and lonely. Often times, the only company that they keep are the voices within their heads. Some conditions and symptoms that are warning factors for suicide include depression, loneliness, increased substance use, distress, and irritability. Also many suicidal people beforehand say goodbye to their personal attachments, or give them away. These symptoms are biological and chemical changes in their brains that affect their moods causing thinking disorders. The people of Fahrenheit 451 are very depressed they have the illusion of a perfect life, but on the inside they all know it's a lie. For example, Mildred to escape loneliness interacts with her “family” on the parlor walls family for hours. Interacting with her family allows her to be a different person, and to have something to do, since Montag is never really there. Many people who are depressed have a habit of abusing drugs. Mildred and many others from her society also abuse sleeping pills on a day to day basis. In the novel it points out that many people a day overdose, and this has become one of the social norms. Another example is...
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