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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. Clarisse is the happy one in the book. She is a young girl who meets Montag one day when he is taking a walk. She can tell that Montag doesn’t look happy. “He wears his happiness like a mask.”(pg.5) This is saying that his happiness was just to cover up his true discontentment inside of him. Because he is wearing his happiness just to cover up his discontent, Clarisse tries to show him that he is truly not happy. He tries to say that he is happy, but he knows that he really isn’t happy after all and he thought he was. The Healthy Living Website says ... ... middle of paper ... ...about the Clarisse girl dying. This upset Montag that she didn’t tell him till 4 days after it happened. Today we do not take death seriously. It’s because of the video games that have a lot of death in them. This kind of numbs us of death says the Do You Know What Your Child Is Playing website. We are like Mildred, how we don’t even think death is a big deal unless it is someone we know. In conclusion, i don’t think that we are happy. I think that most people just say they are happy but are actually discontent. The people I talked about in this essay show that today in our world we are not very happy. It is kind of scary to find out that you have to question if you are really happy. So ask yourself right now if you think you are happy, or are you actually sad inside. Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. “Fahrenheit 451.” New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks 2013.
Through Montag's conversations with Clarisse, I have learned that sometimes the simplest exchange of words and ideas can leave the greatest mark on a person. Clarisse is the light that wipes away the haze and fog from Montag's life. Without knowing it, she influenced him to clearly evaluate his life, beliefs, and choices. Montag simply went about his business during his prominent position as a fireman. Yet after meeting Clarisse, he began to question his thoughts in ways he has never thought to before. He at first laughs at her controversial questions and thoughts from reading books, to practicing the act of "watching people." The turning point for Montag from his past ways was simply a three letter phrase, "Are you happy?" (Pg 10)
Clarisse McClellan, a unique outcast whose personality traits you could say has influenced Montag to question his life. During one night after work Montag has a little run in with this unique individual into which his transformation initiates. Montag and Clarisse share a conversation into which becomes a life changing experience for Montag, they talked about life and how it’s so different from the times long ago. However though towards the end of this fascinating conversation Clarisse asked Montag one last question right before taking off, she asked Montag this, “Are you happy?”(Bradbury 7). Montag hesitantly states that yes he was happy right when she took off. Later on that night we find out Montag’s wife Mildred had overdosed on ...
Clarisse is Montag’s first mentor in his journey; she is the one who first opens his eyes to the world around him, as well as asking the ultimate question “Are you happy?” (7) To which Montag cried “Am I what?” He never gave whether he was actually, truly happy a real, legitimate thought in his entire life. He just woke up, ate breakfast, went to work, ate lunch, went home, ate dinner, and went to sleep; and all with a big grin fixed on his face. But now, after a bit of consideration he came to the realization that “He was not happy…. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask a...
In Fahrenheit 451 the main characters are Montag, Faber, Clarisse, and Beatty. Montag is someone who knows what he wants and what he wants is change. He is a fireman who suddenly realizes the emptiness of his life and starts to search for meaning in the books he is supposed to be burning. Though he is sometimes rash and has a hard time thinking for himself, he is determined to break free from the oppression of ignorance. He quickly forms unusually strong attachments with anyone who seems receptive to true friendship. At first, Montag believes that he is happy. He thinks this because of the question that Clarisse asks him. When he views himself in the firehouse mirror after a night of burning, he grins "the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame." His biggest regret in life is not having a better relationship with his wife. Faber is a very wise and intellectual man. He readily admits that the current state of society is due to the cowardice of people like himself, who would not speak out against book burning when they still could have stopped it. He berates himself for being a coward, but he shows himself capable of acts that require great courage and place him in considerable danger. Clarisse seems to always be of in her own world. She was a beautiful seventeen-year-old who introduces Montag to the world's potential for beauty and meaning with her gentle innocence and curiosity. She is an outcast from society because of her odd habits, which include hiking, playing with flowers, and asking questions. She asks questions such as, "Are you happy?
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.
In Federalist 10 James Madison argued that while factions are inevitable, they might have interests adverse to the rights of other citizens. Madison’s solution was the implementation of a Democratic form of government. He felt that majority rule would not eliminate factions, but it would not allow them to be as powerful as they were. With majority rule this would force all parties affiliate and all social classes from the rich white to the poor minorities to work together and for everyone’s opinion and views to be heard.
... ideas in books and understand them. Before this Montag never questioned the way he lives, he was blinded by all the distractions. The role that Clarisse plays in the book enables Montag to break free of the ignorance.
When Montag goes to his house after meeting Clarisse, Bradbury states, “He (Montag) felt his smile slid away, melt, fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was not happy” (12). Bradbury uses a burning candle to compare it with Montag’s happiness. His happiness is going away, and finally “blows out.” This demonstrates that since Montag’s happiness is fake, he realizes he’s unhappy. The reason why Montag finds this out and not others in the society is because he does not spend his time watching television all day. When Montag discovers his problems instead of ignoring it, his fake happiness leads to unhappiness. Adding on to the previous quote, Bradbury writes, “He was not happy… he wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back” (12). After Clarisse asking him if he’s happy, Montag becomes aware of his superficial happiness. Montag wears his happiness as a mask, and when Clarisse takes his fake happiness away, Montag becomes unhappy and can not get his happiness back. Therefore, superficial happiness results in
The North Korean government is known as authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship. North Korea could be considered a start of a dystopia. Dystopia is a community or society where people are unhappy and usually not treated fairly. This relates how Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 shows the readers how a lost of connections with people and think for themselves can lead to a corrupt and violent society known as a dystopia.
Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance to Today Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence of the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today, which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books. Patai explains that Bradbury saw that people would soon be controlled by the television and saw it as the creators chance to “replace lived experience” (Patai 2).
The theme of Fahrenheit 451 outlines the value of happiness throughout the plot because watching Montag live without joy helps the reader see its vital role in everyday life. Guy Montag lives in a society where control is prominent and where happiness does not matter. At first, he does not realize that he is not satisfied with his life until he meets Clarisse, a young woman in her teenage years. Clarisse asks Guy a question that is seen as too inquisitive in their world; she asks, “ ‘Are you happy?’ ” (Bradbury). This question takes Montag aback because he realizes that his happiness is one that he pretends to have, not one of pure and raw emotion. After this realization, Montag tries to see through Clarisse’s eyes and wonders why books
Love and emotions, essential to one's happiness and personality. That is something Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, would seem to agree with. He portrays the theme of connection vs isolation in Fahrenheit 451 through love and emotions. The first section of the novel has the protagonist, Guy Montag, encounter a 17 year old girl by the name of Clarisse. Right away readers can tell that she is a an oddity in the sense that she ,in a society devoid of true feelings and emotions, exhibits happiness, curiosity, and plenty of other emotions. Montag and Clarisse are walking together when Clarisse plucks a dandelion from the ground and explains to Montag, “Have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin? ...If it rubs off that means I'm in love. Has it?”
Montag is influenced by Clarisse a lot. And, her impact on him is tremendous. She questions his whole life, teaches him to appreciate the simple things, and to care about other people and their feelings. “You're peculiar, you're aggravating, yet you're easy to forgive..”(Bradbury 23) Through all Clarisse's questioning, Montag knows that she is trying to help him. Because of her help and impact on him, Montag is changed forever.
The novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, takes place in a dystopian society where they ban literature, drown out social interaction with modern technology, and anyone who merges outside of these societal rules are oppressed in cruel and inhumane ways. At the beginning of the book, the protagonist Guy Montag is a part of this toxic dystopian cycle until he is introduced to many characters that influence him to change and develop new characteristics. From Clarisse he learns happiness, Faber, he learns friendship, and from Granger he learns leadership.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book set in the 24th century written by Ray Bradbury which tells the story of Guy Montag who is a fireman. The book explores a dystopian world where firemen work to start fires and burn books. Dystopia is a word that is used to refer to the opposite of Utopia. Hence, it represents a world that is terrible in all ways imaginable. A dystopian novel, therefore, portrays a disastrous future. In this book, the protagonist is a proud fireman who takes pride in his work which involves burning illegal books and the homes of their owners. However, with time, he starts to question his work and the purpose of his life in general. Throughout the book, the fireman is faced by numerous dilemmas concerning his life and the problems