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We live in a time of laziness and choosing an uneducated TV show over a book containing precious knowledge. In Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451, we witness a world where books are banned and people are encouraged to sit all day and watch television. The smart ones that read books live in a life of fear since firemen in this world are commanded to burn the houses of anyone that owns a book. Our society isn't at that point yet but a large group of our society are showing strong similarities toward the people in Fahrenheit 451 that sat around all day. This is also encouraged by everyone wanting to be “In the know” so they decide to watch TV all day. The book Fahrenheit 451 is a warning to our society that if we do not stay educated we will ultimately …show more content…
fail as a society. This point is very well represented through the end of the book where America is nuked, and the only ones who survive are those who read books.
“‘But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes!’” (Bradbury 84) This quote from the book represents how much people are sucked into TV, you say to yourself “Ten more minutes” and then that ten minutes turns into twenty then thirty and it keeps escalating. “‘ It’s really fun. It’ll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a wall-Tv put in. It’s only two thousand dollars’” (Bradbury 20). This shows the extent these people went to to watch TV. It represents how much we spend our money on useless things that we practically own already. “‘Will you turn the parlour off?’ He asked. ‘That’s my family.’” (Bradbury 48) This shows how invested these people would get into their television shows. This is very similar to use and our TV shows, seeing as many of us get very invested in our TV shows.
The book Fahrenheit 451 is a warning to our society that if we do not stay educated we will ultimately fail as a society. In order to change our society we must teach ongoing generations about the importance of knowledge. Show them that sitting down all day on the couch all day is benefiting anyone. Show them the world that is around us and the beauty stored inside of books. If we can do this we may stop this trend of people getting dumber and dumber. If we can not, then we might face the same fate of those in the
book.
Few books exemplify the consequences of misconceptions more than Farenheit 451. The book speaks of a world in which in citizens think they are living in a utopia, when in fact their world is constantly devoloving into a place where no human could ever flourish. This delusion along with the misconception that books are thing to be feared is the precise reason that the general populace is so easily controlled. The reason behind the propaganda campaign against books is so the people do not realize that their lives are unsatisfying and dull. In other words, this, misconception propagated by the governing force, fuels the illusion of a perfect world. The myth that the world...
One of England’s greatest literary figures, William Shakespeare, expressed the truth about coveting knowledge by saying that “ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven” (William Shakespeare Quotes). One must assume that Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451, learned from this. Bradbury’s novel shares a similar portrayal towards coveting knowledge. In the novel the protagonist realizes that he is living in a world where knowledge is lost. People abide by rules and restrictions given to them by the government. There is nothing in this society to make people think about how valuable knowledge is, except for books. The protagonist is a fireman whose job is to seek out books and destroy the contents. The mass population believes that books are a waste of time and useless. The protagonist also believes this until a change of heart leads to a journey of identity and curiosity. Bradbury believes that this type of world will eventually turn into our own. Clearly, Ray Bradbury’s outlook for the future of man is grim because he represses intellectual endeavor, lacks critical thinking, and becomes destructive.
Are you really happy? Or are you sad about something? Sad about life or money, or your job? Any of these things you can be sad of. Most likely you feel discontentment a few times a day and you still call yourself happy. These are the questions that Guy Montag asks himself in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book people are thinking they are happy with their lives. This is only because life is going so fast that they think they are but really there is things to be sad about. Montag has finally met Clarisse, the one person in his society that stops to smell the roses still. She is the one that gets him thinking about how his life really is sad and he was just moving too fast to see it. He realizes that he is sad about pretty much everything in his life and that the government tries to trick the people by listening to the parlor and the seashells. This is just to distract people from actual emotions. People are always in a hurry. They have 200 foot billboards for people driving because they are driving so fast that they need more time to see the advertisement. Now I am going to show you who are happy and not happy in the book and how our society today is also unhappy.
“Revealing the truth is like lighting a match. It can bring light or it can set your world on fire” (Sydney Rogers). In other words revealing the truth hurts and it can either solve things or it can make them much worse. This quote relates to Fahrenheit 451 because Montag was hiding a huge book stash, and once he revealed it to his wife, Mildred everything went downhill. Our relationships are complete opposites. There are many differences between Fahrenheit 451 and our society, they just have a different way of seeing life.
You take advantage of your life every day. Have you ever wondered why? You never really think about how much independence you have and how some of us treat books like they’re useless. What you don’t realize is that both of those things are the reason that we live in such a free society. If we didn’t have books and independence, we would treat death and many other important things as if it were no big deal. That is the whole point of Ray Bradbury writing this book.
Henry David Thoreau, a famous American author, once said that “What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Essentially, Thoreau is saying that even though people are normal, we as a society are not and have various faults. Ray Bradbury reflects upon Thoreau’s ideas in his novel entitled Fahrenheit 451. Despite that fact that Bradbury is describing how society might look in the future, he is actually criticizing the society we live in today. In the novel, Guy Montag, the protagonist, realizes that his supposed utopian society is actually a dystopia. Montag finally realizes this when Clarisse, his young neighbor, asks him if he is happy. Although Montag believes that he is happy, it becomes clear later in the novel that he is not. Montag finds countless faults in his society. Throughout the novel, Bradbury’s goal is to warn the reader of faults in society, such as the education system and our attachment to technology.
In Dystopian societies, conformity overrules curiosity, but occasionally people stand and rebel. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Clarisse and Mildred represent these two classes of people. they stand on opposite sides of the overall theme to think for yourself. The curiosity of Clarissa and the conformity of Mildred define the opposing sides of Juan Ramon Jimenez's quote, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way,” by showing both effects in Montag and the rest of society.
Kofi Annan said, “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family” but not in the society of Fahrenheit 451 or the world we live in today. The two societies are similar in the way that social status is focused on and that many people hide their guilty pleasures due to what others think. A difference between the societies is that thinking is punished for in Fahrenheit 451 while in the world today you're encouraged to think by elders but discouraged by your peers.
In this conflict, society in “Fahrenheit 451” is now too dependent on technology. They have a hound that kills those that disobey and that own books. People can't control what they don't want anymore. Now they need technology to take control over situations. The lack of knowledge doesn't let people have self control. For instance the toasters makes the toast, applies butter to them, and hands it to whose ever it belongs too. If everything is done for humanity no one will survive if technology is down. Another example, the TVs in the house have a purpose and that purpose is to keep the audience distracted from thinking. Majority of the people in Fahrenheit 451 have already lost knowledge because of the TVs, falling as victims, but they believe that it's okay to not think. Because the society’s
“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
Dystopian literature is a genre of fictional writing used to explore social and political structures in a dark world or setting. Ray Bradbury used this genre in his book “Fahrenheit 451”. Dystopian literature consists of dystopian societies. A dystopian society is an imaginary society that is dehumanizing and unpleasant. The author of “Fahrenheit 451”, Ray Bradbury, used this genre to create his own dystopian society and expressed himself through the words of some of the characters he created and showed his concerns for the future of society.
Although Fahrenheit 451 held some significance during the time period in which it was written, it warrants much more significance when applied to today’s contemporary society. Indeed, the “present” in which we are living may in fact be the “future” in which Bradbury envisioned in the novel. As the world becomes evermore connected in the “digital age” by mediums such as social media, and as society continues to be increasing its dependency on simply “what’s online,” perhaps our tendency now of quick, short, habitual intakes of information has destroyed our ability to reflect in our truest expression of actual thought. Our obsession of “quick consumerism” to have more physical stuff has, in turn, incapacitated our mental mouth—depriving it of the intellectual stuff that is just as needed. This is what Ray Bradbury argues. This is why he wrote Fahrenheit 451, and this is why the novel still holds incredible significance today.
In today’s world, there is an abundance of social problems relating to those from the novel Fahrenheit 451. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the protagonist Montag exhibits drastic character development throughout the course of the novel. Montag lives in a world where books are banned from society and no one is able to read them. Furthermore, Montag has to find a way to survive and not be like the rest of society. This society that Montag lives has became so use to how they live that it has affected them in many ways. Bradbury’s purpose of Fahrenheit 451 was to leave a powerful message for readers today to see how our world and the novel’s world connect through texting while driving, censorship and addiction.
The setting of the novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is presumed to be set in a large U.S. city in 2053, 100 years after the book was released. As the story begins, the mood is upsetting, having a science fiction/dystopian undertone. This mood is seen when the main character is introduced as a book burner, a concept unknown to this modern day. The scenes are dull and colorless with dreary details. Technology can be seen as more advanced through the fireman’s pole in a beginning scene.
Daniel J. Boorstin once said “Technology is so much fun, but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.” Boorstin adverts to the fact that in an era dominated by technology; people have lost the ability to think for themselves and are constantly given trivial information. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, adolescents are taught an amplitude of information, but the material is rather aimless and inane. In the year 2053, time spent watching television and laying bed is thought to be more valuable than time used to think and converse with others. Bradbury prognosticated that society would in turn lose its ability to effectively communicate and would begin occupying its people with nugatory work. In his bestselling novel, Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury warn future generations about the dangers of busy work and lack of communication.