Montag Against the World
The Cold War was a very stressful time for both the American government and it’s people. Nobody felt safe due to the threat of the Soviets themselves, their spies, and the technology they were producing. During this time of the Cold War, Ray Bradbury was writing his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451. In this dystopian novel, Bradbury portrays the thoughts and fears of the American people during the war and uses them to craft the society the main character, Guy Montag, lives in. The people of the society have been betrayed by the government on multiple occasions; the government censors books and ideas, hypnotises people with tv, and strikes fear into people with the firemen, who burn books and everything inside
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of a person's house and the hound, who is a mechanical dog with a morphine filled syringe. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag, who is a fireman himself, confronts the authority running his society and challenges it by reading the forbidden books, focusing on a better future and taking part in something larger than himself. By confronting the authority, Montag helps carve a new path for civilization that will accept and push for new ideas. Although the society Montag lives in seems to be giving the people what it wants, it is in fact a threatening environment that infringes on the people's rights.
While Beatty, Montag’s boss and captain of fire station 451, is explaining to Montag how the job of being a fireman came to be, he also mentions the people’s desire to be happy. People become unhappy when they disagree with one another. The government wants to fulfill the wants of a man and therefore wants him to be happy so they, “don’t give him two sides to a question ... give him one. Better yet give him none” (58). All people have a difference of opinions, one person may think one thing is right and another person may believe that another thing is right. This is part of what makes humans human, to be able to think on their own and form their own opinions based on their experiences. To take this away from people is taking away from a person's being and personality. If a society is chipping away at it’s people and restricting information so nobody can form opinions then that society is a threatening environment. In order to limit the amount of opinions and different ideas that make people unhappy the government has to eliminate the information that people are receiving. With the majority of the information being spread by book, the government decided to stop the spread of books by burning them. People all around the world read and they read to gather information to know more about the world and what it holds. It is natural for people to crave and seek for knowledge and it is apart of everyday life for a great amount of people if not all people in the world. The government in Fahrenheit 451 restricts the knowledge available to it’s people, this goes against natural human behaviors and creates a threatening environment. In addition to being detrimental to human behavior and personality, the society Montag lives in is also physically harmful. Once while talking to Clarisse, Montag learns, “six
of [her] friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks” (27). A government that cannot protects its people, especially its young people is not a safe place to be and a hostile environment. TV can be very entertaining and exciting to watch, however it is certainly not worth living in a dangerous area in which your rights, being, and existence is at risk. This is the society Montag lives in. Through his conversations with Clarisse McClellan and the application of his new outlook on life he learned from Clarisse, Montag questions the norms of his society. At the end of one of Clarisse and Montag’s first conversations, she brings up the emotion of happiness. Clarisse asks Montag, “are you happy” (7)? After sometime of thinking Montag discovers the answer to her question is no, “he is not happy” (9), and there are two reasons for that answer. The first one being nobody goes outside or really talks to anyone except to their ‘friends’ in the shows they watch. Montag is not happy when he is with these ‘friends,’ despite his government saying these ‘friends’ will make him happy. He is only happy when he is talking with Clarisse and conversing about things that matter. The second cause of his unhappiness is he is not truly living. All through his life Montag has gone through the motions; he completed school, met a girl and married, got a house and a job and has worked that job for ten years. However, he never experienced any emotion while doing these ‘activities,’ for example, Montag is married, yet he is, “not in love with anyone” (19). He has gone through the motions because the rest of his society also goes through these motions as well. Upon realizing that he is not happy, Montag questions what the true feeling of happiness is and what living life is without the norms of society hanging over his head. Montag also questions his society when a woman refuses to leave her books and ends up burning with her books. This got Montag wondering, what could be so important in a book that a woman would give her life to be with her books in the afterlife? Never before in all his years as being a fireman had he realized or even opened his eyes up to what books contained inside them. The woman’s willingness to die for her books and and the fact she lit the match to burn herself and the books made Montag question what was in the books and why his job even existed. The actions Montag takes in response to questioning his government highlights the causes of Ray Bradbury main idea of the novel, Rebel. The first major step Montag takes to rebel against his society is to team up with Faber. Faber agrees to teach Montag how to read, in order to interpret the text and understand the ideas portrayed in the books, and help Montag print more books and spread them to people all over the nation. Learning to interpret and understanding the novels that he reads, Montag is directly disobeying his society and going against what his job is trying to stop. However, Montag is unable to carry out this rebellious act without Faber to teach him to do so. Mentorship, is a cause of rebellious behavior. In order to rebel a person needs a mentor to guide him and teach him the ways to rebel against an oppressive society. Without this a person is just another faceless blob. Another important action Montag takes in actively rebelling against his society happens when Montag is going to a house to burn the books; the house turns out to be his own. He does his duty and burns his house but he also, “shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on,” his boss, Beatty (113). Montag is destroys his past life at home when he burns his house down and destroys his past life at work when he sets Beatty aflame. Putting one's past behind them and focusing on making the situation that they are in now a better and more exciting on in the future is what rebelling is all about. By Incinerating his boss and home, Montag looks to the future and places his disappointing past behind himself. The last and most important action Montag takes to rebel against his society is to join the group of men he finds in the woods. These men have a similar goal to Montag, to continue and later spread books around the country along with the ideas that they hold. By joining these men, Montag joins a group that focuses on something larger than themselves and does things for the greater good. Joining a rebellious group is the last part Montag needs to complete to truly become a rebel and does it by joining these men. Montag’s ability to become a rebel and write the other way us due to his mentor Faber, focusing on a better future, and joining a group that fights for the greater good. The experiences Montag encounters, the trials he faces and the ideas he is exposed to make for a better society to strive towards. Throughout the novel Montag goes from being a regular ol’ fireman to changing into one of his society’s most well known rebels. He completes this process by thoroughly examining his dangerous and threatening society and then acting upon those results and fix the wrongs of his society. Montag has learned the wrongs his society and attempted to fix them. Now with the society seeming to be in ruins he has the perfect chance to make things right. Montag will be able to allow books and the flow of the ideas among people. He will make sure people will not be told how to be happy or live their lives, but that the people will be able to venture into the world on their own and have their own experiences with people and nature. Not watch other ‘people’ have these experiences for them. Most importantly Montag will ensure that people will feel emotions and talk about things that really matter.
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
Because everyone in Fahrenheit 451 is conditioned to fear knowledge and view it as hurtful, people believe that this the correct mindset, and live their lives without questioning why the government is forcing people to remain in a state of ignorance. Montag is a fireman, meaning that he burns books for a living, destroying the knowledge that is so valued in our society today. Montag is much like other firemen, doing what he was told without
In the 1950 novel Fahrenheit 451, AUTHOR Ray Bradbury presents the now familiar images of mind controlING worlds. People now live in a world where they are blinded from the truth of the present and the past. The novel is set in the, perhaps near, future where the world is AT war, and firemen set fires instead of putting them out. Books and written knowledge ARE banned from the people, and it is the firemen's job to burn books. Firemen are the policemen of THE FUTURE. Some people have rebelled by hiding books, but have not been very successful. Most people have conformed to THE FUTURE world. Guy Montag, a fireman, is a part of the majority who have conformed. BUT throughout the novel Montag goes through a transformation, where he changes from a Conformist to a Revolutionary.
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.
“Remember when we had to actually do things back in 2015, when people barely had technology and everyday life was so difficult and different? When people read and thought and had passions, dreams, loves, and happiness?” This is what the people of the book Fahrenheit 451 were thinking, well that is if they thought at all or even remembered what life used to be like before society was changed.
At the beginning of the book Fahrenheit 451, Montag is a loyal citizen and firemen, who has rarely questioned the beliefs of society. He sees the world as any ordinary citizen (in this society) would, and is perfectly content with seeing flames eat the words and thoughts of a person. Montag would never question society as he “grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame” (Bradbury 3). This means that he did not really feel the emotions that he should have felt, and was blinded by society. He felt he was doing good for society, even though he had no evidence except for the book the firemen read from to learn about their profession. The quote “Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin. Rule 1. Answer the alarm swiftly. 2. Start the fire swiftly. 3. Burn everything. 4. Report back to firehouse immediately. 5. Stand alert for other alarms” (Bradbury 34-35) gives examples of how ignorant Montag was. He thought that because it was written in a book and because everyone else believed it, he also should believe it. Montag was the perfect citizen in his perfect society, but h...
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.
Chuck Palahniuk once said “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” When Clarisse asked Montag if he was happy, he thought, and thought about it, until finally, he found out he really wasn’t happy. Guy Montag risked his family, his career, and his life, just to hold banished readings within his home. He went against society to do what he thought was right, even if that meant punishment or death. Montag was a hero because he tried to bring back freedom and independent thought, show off author’s greatest works, and even though he rebelled, and killed a man, he did it with good intentions to help the rest of society.
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.
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses the life of Guy Montag, a fireman in a near future dystopia, to make an argument against mindless conformity and blissful ignorance. In Bradbury’s world, the firemen that Montag is a part of create fires to burn books instead of putting out fires. By burning books, the firemen eliminate anything that might be controversial and make people think, thus creating a conforming population that never live a full life. Montag is part of this population for nearly 30 years of his life, until he meets a young girl, Clarisse, who makes him think. And the more he thinks, the more he realizes how no one thinks. Upon making this realization, Montag does the opposite of what he is supposed to; he begins to read. The more he reads and the more he thinks, the more he sees how the utopia he thought he lived in, is anything but. Montag then makes an escape from this society that has banished him because he has tried to gain true happiness through knowledge. This is the main point that Bradbury is trying to make through the book; the only solution to conformity and ignorance is knowledge because it provides things that the society can not offer: perspective on life, the difference between good and evil, and how the world works.
To start, the novel Fahrenheit 451 describes the fictional futuristic world in which our main protagonist Guy Montag resides. Montag is a fireman, but not your typical fireman. In fact, firemen we see in our society are the ones, who risk their lives trying to extinguish fires; however, in the novel firemen are not such individuals, what our society think of firemen is unheard of by the citizens of this futuristic American country. Instead firemen burn books. They erase knowledge. They obliterate the books of thinkers, dreamers, and storytellers. They destroy books that often describe the deepest thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Great works such as Shakespeare and Plato, for example, are illegal and firemen work to eradicate them. In the society where Guy Montag lives, knowledge is erased and replaced with ignorance. This society also resembles our world, a world where ignorance is promoted, and should not be replacing knowledge. This novel was written by Ray Bradbury, He wrote other novels such as the Martian chronicles, the illustrated man, Dandelion wine, and something wicked this way comes, as well as hundreds of short stories, he also wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV. In this essay three arguments will be made to prove this point. First the government use firemen to get rid of books because they are afraid people will rebel, they use preventative measures like censorship to hide from the public the truth, the government promotes ignorance to make it easier for them to control their citizens. Because the government makes books illegal, they make people suppress feelings and also makes them miserable without them knowing.
Ray Bradbury's vision of a disordered world was expressed in his book Fahrenheit 451. Set in the future, it deals with a man's struggle between his destructive government position and his inner self-conscience. Guy Montag was a fireman but he did not put out fires. Instead, he created them through the burning of books. This was what Bradbury was trying to imply through the title of his book, Fahrenheit 451, the temperature at which books burn. Montag was leading a fairly happy life until he met a girl, Clarisse, who aroused his deepest feelings and fears. He became curious about the contents of books and wondered why they were so feared. This led him through a series of events which changed his life forever. When Montag asked Beatty about the burning of books he was told, "If you don't want a man to be unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." The futurist government displayed in Fahrenheit 451 tried to prevent any feelings or opinions contrary to their own because they did not want to be challenged. Instead, they fed unwanted junk into the minds of their people through the parlor, a wall to wall television. This machine, that does not inspire the thinking process, lead them to make the conclusion that their world revolves around it and nothing else.
Everyone has the ability to look at where the world is today and picture what the future might hold. That’s exactly what Huxley, Orwell and Bradbury did in their futuristic novels, though exaggerating quite a bit. In Huxley’s novel Brave New World, he depicts a society where people are decanted from bottles instead of being born from mothers. George Orwell gives us a glimpse at a world where everything is regulated, even sex, in his novel 1984. Bradbury foresaw the future in the most accurate way in his novel Fahrenheit 451; writing about a future without literature to guard the people from negative feelings, just as our college campuses in America are doing by adding trigger warnings to books with possible offensive content.
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).