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Social norms and their negative effects
Stylistic Features Of Ray Bradbury
Social norms and their negative effects
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If one doesn’t know that they’re sad, they’re always happy. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is set in a future where books are banned and conformity is pressured. Firemen burn books, and information is censored. Without an ability to question, one cannot question their own happiness. With censorship, anything that can cause you to is removed, and this effect is increased. With reliance on technology, one is so immersed that it becomes almost impossible to question anything, let alone think for oneself, and they can be made to think that they are happy, when in reality, they aren’t. Because the government in Fahrenheit 451 removed the ability to question, censors books and ideas, and creates a reliance on technology, the people in Fahrenheit 451 have deceived themselves into believing they are happy and content.
Because the Government removed the ability to question, the people in Fahrenheit 451 have deceived themselves into believing that they are happy. Guy Montag had been harbouring books for quite a long time, but only recently made it known to his wife. She had friends over, and he took out a poem book and read from it, in front of his wife’s dumbfounded friends. “Then he began to read...Mrs. Phelps was crying. The others...watched her crying grow very loud as her face squeezed itself out of shape....She sobbed uncontrollably... "Sh, sh," said Mildred. "You're all right, Clara,... Clara, what's wrong?" "I-I,", sobbed Mrs. Phelps, "don't know, don't know, I just don't know, oh oh...””. The poem book caused Mrs. Phelps to actually think about her life for the first time ever. Government censorship prevented the people from ever being exposed to material that would make them question. For the first time, she thought about her l...
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...very night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning”. In Fahrenheit 451, technology is so pervasive, so omnipresent, that it takes up all of everyone’s time. They are so immersed, they never have any time to think about anything, All of their free attention is sucked up by their addiction and reliance on technology, that they never think about their own happiness, or that of the people around them. They never stop to question their happiness, so they assume that they are happy. If one never thinks about it, then they automatically assume that it is okay. For instance, if one doesn’t think about an animal attacking them, then there must not be one, for if there was, then they’d be thinking about it. This is an instinctive trait in humans, and the Fahrenheit 451 government is using it to their advantage.
In Fahrenheit 451, the residents were not happy in the society they were confined to. The government there made them believe they were happy because they had no sense of feelings and if they did they would have been killed, sent to the psychiatrist who would then prescribe them pills, and just thought of as a threat. The word “intellectual” was seen as a swear word, so from that you can see what type of society the people were living in. In general, the residents of Fahrenheit 451 were not happy at all and were the victims of media and entertainment.
In Fahrenheit 451, the government exercised censorship supposedly for the purpose of happiness. Through technology and media, the government was able to eliminate individuality by manipulating the mind of the people into believing the propaganda of what happiness is. The people’s ignorance made them obediently abide that they failed to realize how far technology and the media have taken control of their minds. The free thought of characters such as Montag and Clarisse collided with that of Captain Beatty, who strongly believe in and enforce the censorship, and the firemen, whose role was to burn illegal books; these clashes were Bradbury’s way
Imagine living in a world where everything everyone is the same. How would you feel if you were not able to know important matters? Being distracted with technology in order to not feel fear or getting upset. Just like in this society, the real world, where people have their faces glued to their screen. Also the children in this generation, they are mostly using video games, tablets, and phones instead of going outside and being creative with one another. Well in Fahrenheit 451 their society was just like that, dull and conformity all around. But yet the people believed they were “happy” the way things were, just watching TV, not thinking outside the box.
Fahrenheit 451 depicts a dystopian society created by its government. The main characters are Montag, Mildred, Clarisse, and Beatty. The people in the society don’t pay attention to meaningful activities. For example, when they are on the highway they have to make the billboards 200 feet long instead of 20 so the people could actually see them. Even when they live together they do not interact with one another. Every person has been censored by the government. The government has taken away all of the freedom from the people. The firemen now burn books and start fires instead of putting them out. Fahrenheit 451 emphasizes that a government's attempt to create a utopia can lead to dystopia because in the novel people are uneducated, careless
“Their optimism, their willingness to have trust in a future where civilizations self-destruction comes to a full stop, has to do with their belief in the changed relationship between humans and their world” says Lee (Lee 1). In “As the Constitution Says” by Joseph F. Brown, Brown talks about a NEA experiment that found American’s have been reading less and less and our comprehension skills are dramatically dropping because of this (Brown 4). Bradbury saw little use in the technology being created in his time, he avoided airplanes, driving automobiles, and eBooks. Bradbury did not even allow his book to be sold and read on eBooks until 2011. If one takes away books, then one takes away imagination. If one takes away imagination, then one takes away creativity. If one takes away creativity, then one takes away new ideas for technology and the advancement of the world. People nowadays have lost interest in books because they see it as a waste of time and useless effort, and they are losing their critical thinking, understanding of things around them, and knowledge. Brown says that Bradbury suggests that a world without books is a world without imagination and its ability to find happiness. The people in Fahrenheit 451 are afraid to read books because of the emotions that they
Everyone has a time in their life when reading, philosophy, and continual deep thinking becomes all too much. That irrational frustration that make one wish that it all would just go away or that TV and games would replace them. The universe of Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury takes this idea to a whole new level. In the book, society has actually made books illegal. It’s the job of Firemen to burn them if they should come across any. While some believe Fahrenheit 451 has little to say to readers today, it actually has a powerful message for readers today because things in Fahrenheit 451 have occurred in the past and this story has molded the U.S.
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
“Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying to myself, I am not happy, I am not happy.” -Guy Montag (****Bradbury) Living in a society that blinds its citizens into believing in false happiness leads to a multitude of problems later. The lifestyles that were lived in Fahrenheit 451 are similar and can be connected in many ways to what is seen today. Although one could argue that these two societies are different because of their ‘book burning,’ it is clear to see the commonalities shared in technology and their personal relationships.
As can be seen, intellectual thoughts have been thoroughly abolished throughout the country. Still, to further elaborate, most of the characters inside Fahrenheit 451 do not seem to care about anything. This descends to the point where wives do not even care about their children or husbands. “”I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it’s not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn on the switch. It’s like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid”” (93). Mrs. Bowles explains that she doesn’t even have to care or tend to her children, all she has to do is to put the children in the ‘parlor’, or the TV room. The shortness and spontaneousness of relationships in Fahrenheit 451 is even shown in the pop culture. “”Did you see that Clara Dove five-minute romance last night…”
Haruki Murakami once said, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the society loses its power and purpose because individuals lose their ability to live a full life involving relationships, meaningful activities, and rich ideas.
‘“Yes, 'Everybody's happy nowadays.' We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn't you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else's way”’ (Huxley 91). People in the World State are put in one of several different classes, and are designed to perform only certain duties, but beyond that, they have little to no control over what they do with their life. In Fahrenheit 451, people are targeted even if they have so much as a book. There is no freedom to do anything that doesn’t go along with society. In certain countries of the modern world, especially the United States, citizens have what seems to be an unlimited amount of freedom, and both of these novels can deepen the understanding of readers and teach them the significance of being
Imagine a world, where kids brutally kill one another for fun; where the word “family” is irrelevant. Where the government monitors your every move, and where information is censored. Fortunately, the only society as dehumanizing as the one described is within the dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. In this novel, the main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman that burns books. This unique dystopian novel tells the exhilarating story of him slowly coming to the realization that his “perfect” civilization is not so flawless anymore. He first realizes that he’s not so happy with his life when he meets Clarisse, his neighbor, as she questions the norms of the society. He then begins to study his wife, Mildred Montag, and realizes she isn’t happy either although she doesn’t admit so. This slow, but decisive process results in Montag
The society in Fahrenheit 451 lacks love, faith, and happiness because it lacks relationships. Rabin suggests that relationships are the key to happiness because human beings naturally thrive off of human interactions and finding their purpose. Subsequently, one can presume that happiness is similar in both texts because they imply that happiness in self-made.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book where society seems to be weird and far away from today's society. In the book, happiness is a quality not achieved in its reality; it is just superficial. Our society is one where people are building to an environment like that. Neither Fahrenheit 451's society nor ours care enough about important things of life. Both societies try to make things easier for themselves, when it is not necessary. Our society has aspects very similar with the book's life style.
The Dalai Lama once said, “Without technology humanity has no future, but we have to be careful that we don’t become so mechanised that we lose our feelings.” He is warning the people of today's society. Dalai Lama states that we can’t let technology take over, or we will stop expressing feelings because we will be addicted and obsessed with technology. Just like Dalai Lama, the author of the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, writes about the danger of technology taking over this particular society in the book, which leads to citizens not expressing feelings. These examples show that the society in Fahrenheit 451 is dystopian.