...EXTENT IN THE NOVEL ENTITLED FAHRENHEIT 451 BY RAY BRADBURY Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury that tells the story of a future world in which books are banned and burned, TV becomes everyone’s drug of choice, and independent thinking is basically illegal. This novel describes about what happens when books are forgotten or suppressed, and it makes the author’s arguments about the book as a keystone to intellectual freedom and education of the human being. Fahrenheit 451 begins with an ambiguous opening line: "It was a pleasure to burn" (33). The story emphasizes on the live of a fireman named Guy Montag. Inside this story, the author describes that the people live in an era where the houses are all fireproof, people are addicted with TV and radio and the most extreme is that the main job of the fireman is not to end a fire but to start one. Fireman’s job is to find books and burn them. In the beginning of the story Guy Montag was very confirmative, went along with everything the government had ordered him to do and didn’t really question anything. But by the end of the story, he was completely different. He had changed his views completely. One reason that motivated Montag to change was his curiosity. His curiosity started when Montag saw Clarisse McClellan, the 17 years old girl who lived in his neighborhood. Clarisse was really the first person to open up Montag’s mind by asking him questions about his job, “But why do you burn books.” It started...
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...The theme of Fahrenheit 451 is censorship. It doesn't really provide a real reason why books are banned. Instead it really mainly suggests many contributing factors that create the reason why books are banned. These contributing factors can be broken down into two groups. One group where it leads to a lack of interest in reading books and another group in which the factors contribute to make people hostile towards books. The first group includes factors that compete with reading. These factors include television, radio, and many other forms of entertainment. In the way that Bradbury contributes these factors it makes it harder to concentrate. In this book it creates a lifestyle in which it's harder to concentrate. With everything that’s going...
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...Howard R. Stephens Jr. Dr. Cruz ENG 2115 11/25/14 Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 is a brilliant fictional book written by Ray Bradbury in 1954. It is about future American people that do not know or pay attention to education, but rely entirely on technology. In relation to our past generation, people would have never felt this society would relate to our world. As our generation goes on you can start to relate Fahrenheit 451 to today’s society. There are certain things that are out of reach for our society, and then there are certain things that hit our society right on the head. Our society today is more concentrated on technology as in Fahrenheit 451. By Fahrenheit 451 being a fictional book it is almost unreal that it relates so well to our society today. The main character Montag is a fireman whose job is to go around town and torch books. Books in this futuristic society are banned. Society in this book forces people to drive recklessly, watch more than enough television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio with ear attachments to their ears. At the beginning Montag has no doubt that society is right. As the story goes along he meets a young girl named Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse McClellan helps him realize the hollowness of his job and life with her constant and intriguing questions, love of nature and people, and her gentleness. Montag goes through a tough time a few days later. Montag’s wife, Mildred, tries to commit suicide by consuming a canteen of sleeping...
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...Theme Thesis The theme that FAHRENHEIT 451 is trying to express throughout the book is that the authoritarian government doesn’t want people having independent thoughts. I believe this is what Ray Bradbury was trying to express by how the Society acted towards books. Also By how the motif books go well with social control vs individualism since everyone is supposed to act the same and no one is allowed to think differently. With the quotes that I have found throughout the book, I will support that the authoritarian government doesn’t want independence thoughts. The following quotes from page eight and nine “ ‘Do you read any of the books you burn?’ He laughed.‘ That’s against the law!’” and “ ‘ I rarely watch the ‘parlor walls’ or go to races or Fun Parks. So I’ve lots of time for crazy thoughts… He suddenly...
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...“The Minority Report” by Philip K. Dick and Fahrenheit 451: The Graphic Novel by Ray Bradbury are both stories that make negative predictions about the future. In both of these stories the author is trying to tell the reader what to expect in the future. The authors are both trying to make it aware to the reader that the feature will be dystopian like and lacking many things that society has today. In “The Minority Report” Philip K. Dick tells a story about how three precogs predict what crime is going to happen next, so they can stop it. In this dystopian story, there is a lack of freedom. This is because in this world, there are people like John Anderton, the head of prcrime and Commissioner of Police (Dick). In detail, this story takes...
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...Censorship filters horrible things on the television, internet browsers, phones, social media, and etc. In the book Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows how censorship can be effective to a society. In Fahrenheit 451 Montag turns his back on his society and follows what he thinks is right. Our nation needs censorship. Censorship helps end racism, prevents military corruption, and protects kids. Racism is a worldwide issue that someone needs to put an end to. “This is great literature.But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can’t get past that,” the parent,said. The quote is a parent complaining about how the books To Kill a...
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...By its very definition, technology refers to the machines and devices that are scientifically developed. From its definition, technology sounds completely harmless, built only to help the human race thrive. But has anybody thought of the effects of using these machines and devices too much? In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the author, Ray Bradbury, addresses the effects of using technology to do everything. Set in a futuristic dystopian society, Fahrenheit 451 describes the monotone lives that people lead when it’s dominated by technology. Through his application of similes and hyperboles, Bradbury conveys that the negative influence of technology can cause people to become oblivious to their environment. Using similes, Bradbury demonstrates the...
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...adolescents slaughtering each other for the entertainment of the wealthy, like in the Hunger Games, or the possibility of a world where criminals are put through brutal behavioral modifications by the system in return for freedom, as seen in the cult classic film A Clockwork Orange, are all probable events destined to happen in the not so distant future. The dystopian genre gives readers and viewers a glimpse of what can occur and harm society if we are not able to prevent a world that ends in chaos. In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by John Hillcoat, present worlds in which individuals deal with their terrible reality by fighting for a better one. Utilizing stylistic elements to depict a horrific world that can be easily end up as our own, both authors are able to display the possible fate of civilization. Part 1: The Social Commentary and Style within Fahrenheit 451 In Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, he depicts a society that is in denial about how unhappy they are and how they pretend like the whole world revolves around them. The society consists of a general public who don’t seem to do anything except feeding their minds with anything that will entertain them. There are firemen whose job is to burn books to rid the community of the past and the valuable knowledge that books contain. These people are conditioned to think that their simple, routine life, makes them happy. In the beginning of the book, the main character...
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...Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury has many themes. The main theme in the book is censorship. It never lets the reader know exactly why books should be banned. It gives a couple reasons, the first one being that people are not interested in reading, and the second one being that some are disapproving of them. Bradbury thinks that society focuses more on t.v. and the radio rather than reading a physical book. The people that disapprove books are the ones that feel offended and sensitive to what they are reading. For example, the character Millie represents the theme of the book. She doesn’t have any knowledge or ideas because she only listens to the radio and watches tv instead of reading. A different theme in the book is that burning books...
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...Ray Bradbury Research Paper The short novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury published in 1953 is a story that revolves around the near future where books and literature and banned and burned. Many aspects of this book where heavily influenced by events that happened in Ray’s life when he was a child and throughout his adulthood. The location of Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an urban American city, no specific name or location given, surrounded by suburban houses in the outskirts of the city. Ray had been living in southern California near Santa Ana around the time had begun writing Fahrenheit 451. It was around 1940 “…Ray wrote what he would later call ‘five ladyfinger firecracker’ which led to the ‘explosion’ of Fahrenheit 451.” (Weller 199) The story takes place in the 20th century with no specific year given where two nuclear wars had taken place since 1990. Ray was inspired by the events taking place at the time such as the rise of Nazi Germany, McCarthyism and the “witch hunt set out by the House Un-American Activities Committee in Hollywood in 1947…” (Weller 199) In addition to the setting, a few, but not all of the characters from Fahrenheit were influenced by certain events from Ray’s life. On a windy autumn night in Los Angeles, Ray had been out on a walk with a friend of his, when “A police car wheeled up beside them. The officer stepped out and approached the two men. He asked what they were doing” (Weller 199) in which Ray responded, “Putting one foot in front...
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...Kevin Kim Mr.Cimetta ENG 4U 13 May 2015 Fahrenheit 451 Essay The society of Fahrenheit 451 is filled with corruption and betrayal. Governments use technology to control over their people but as the novel shows, it is almost impossible to keep everyone in control. Through Montag’s meeting with Clarisse, Montag’s betrayal against the government, and government’s use of technology thoroughly showed the corrupted society created by the government in the novel, Fahrenheit 451. The protagonist, Guy Montag, also spent his entire life in the corrupted society created by Bradbury. He worked for the government since he was twenty years old for ten years as a fireman. In the novel’s society, fireman’s job was to burn down books. Montag says, “Books make people unhappy, they make them anti-social”. This quote shows how Montag is also part of the corrupted society. “As they walk home together, Clarisse asks Montag about being a fireman. At first, he laughs at her questions, like when she asks why has never read a book. “That’s against the law!” he laughs” (Bradbury 5). This scene shows how books are forbidden from the society. As mentioned above, Montag worked for the government as a fireman since he was twenty years old for ten years. He never questioned or thought about why books were...
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...Fahrenheit 451 extra credit Fundamentals of communication 11- 09-15 Fahrenheit 451 1. Clarisse describes a past that Montag has never known: one with front porches, gardens, and rocking chairs. What do these items have in common, and how might their removal have encouraged Montag's repressive society? This was a very interesting scene that vividly depicted a picture with just a couple of simple words. The lines that she acted were superb. Clarisse sat out side during the dark when montage walked by and noticed that this girl figured out who he was before she saw him she announced that “I can smell the kerosene of you. So you must be a fireman! Not the ones that used to put fires out like in the past but ones that start them”. He responded with “well this is my job”. She then preceded and look up in the sky and wondered to herself and asked Montage if he ever noticed the green grass, aroma of the flowers, etc. She then abruptly said, “What about those cars? Do you think they ever look down and think about this stuff”? Do you think they even notice it? I mean these cars drive so fast that they even needed to make the billboards larger. She said. there use to be a time when they were only 25 feet long but now days they are a 100. She asks Montage, “Did you ever look down and notice this”? He replied “No not really”. The reason I depicted this scene is because it gives a lot of detail about the repressive society that is brainwashed to take pills, watch TV, and be anti-social...
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...give biased information, which disassembled the society of knowledge altogether. As Montag was forced to burn his own house down at the end of the book in the chapter ‘Burning Bright’ he described himself with emptiness after the house was in flames, and that it “made an even emptier whistle, a senseless scream” (Bradbury 111). The notions he had about books in this moment were still, he wanted to know why this was happening to him. The modern society is creating various types of technology which is slowly replacing books. As hard as it may seem, technology is taking over. Soon, books won’t be an issue, but that isn’t stopping the world. Many people enjoy reading books because they can get lost in them, and they don’t strain one’s eyes. Montag thinks the same way, that the technology taking over his life is useless, because everything can be found in books and should stay that way. This world is endlessly thinking of new ways to improve technology, and that’s just the problem. This society is moving down Fahrenheit's road because of the impression of censorship and it being not banned, but influenced. Today, people are not only picking up iPads, phones, and computers more than ever, but throwing away their books as...
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...A Study of the Allusions in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 Author(s): Peter Sisario[->0] [(essay date February 1970) In the following essay, Sisario examines the source and significance of literary allusions in Fahrenheit 451 and considers their didactic potential for the beginning student of literature.] Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is more than just a readable and teachable short novel that generates much classroom discussion about the dangers of a mass culture, as Charles Hamblen points out in his article "Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in the Classroom." It is an excellent source for showing students the value of studying an author's use of specific allusions in a work of fiction. While writing excellent social criticism, Bradbury uses several direct quotations from works of literature, including the Bible; a careful analysis of the patterning of these allusions shows their function of adding subtle depth to the ideas of the novel. Fahrenheit 451 is set five centuries from now in an anti-intellectual world where firemen serve the reverse role of setting fires, in this case to books that people have been illegally hoarding and reading. Literature is banned because it might potentially incite people to think or to question the status quo of happiness and freedom from worry through the elimination of controversy. "Intellectual" entertainment is provided by tapioca-bland television that broadcasts sentimental mush on all four walls. The novel, first written in a shorter version...
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...“”You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me the most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” (-James Baldwin) The story Fahrenheit 451, by Rad Bradbury, is a symbolic story that reveals censorship of people and their knowledge. Knowing that books provide emotions, imagination, and make people crave independence, Bradbury had banned the idea of books by creating a democracy that concluded that books hurt people and went against them. This book used characters and figurative language that symbolized the theme, which is censorship of not only people, but the question of ‘why’ as well. “I don’t talk things, sir,” said Faber. ”I talk the meanings of things. I sit here and know I’m alive.” (Pg. 71, Bradbury)...
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