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Symbolism n fahrenheit 451 essay
Symbolism n fahrenheit 451 essay
Symbolism n fahrenheit 451 essay
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Montag eventually comes to the realization that he isn't capable of much individual thought, and expresses his concerns to Faber. He understands how easily controlled he is and how he automatically obeys anything asked of him without a second thought. Later, in Part 3, when Beatty forces Montag to burn down his own house, the reader becomes aware of how extremely automatic Montag's obedience is. The books Montag read, while maybe not making much sense at the time, did begin to teach him to think for himself and form his own opinions of the world around him. If he'd had access to books his whole life, his instinct to obey may not have developed quite as strongly and left him in the situation he got himself into. Books show us the nature
In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury creates a world resembling our current world. This novel is about Montag, a fireman who burns books instead of preventing fires, because it is against the law to have books. Without the use of books, people are dumb, and they don’t know what they are talking about. Montag hates the idea of books, but throughout the novel he learns why they are necessary, resulting in him becoming a dynamic character. A definition of a dynamic character is a character that grows and changes throughout a story. At the end of the story, Montag changes emotionally and mentally. Three major events result in a dynamic change in Montag’s perspective.
In the novel, FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag lives in an inverted society, where firemen make fires instead of put them out, and pedestrians are used as bowling pins for cars that are excessively speeding. The people on this society are hypnotized by giant wall size televisions and seashell radios that are attached to everyone’s ears. People in Montag’s society do not think for themselves or even generate their own opinions; everything is given to them by the television stations they watch. In this society, if someone is in possession of a book, their books are burned by the firemen, but not only their books, but their entire home. Montag begins realizing that the things in this society are not right. Montag is influenced and changes over the course of the novel. The strongest influences in Montag’s life are Clarisse, the burning on 11 Elm Street and Captain Beatty.
In the end of the book we learn that the city Montag once lived in has been destroyed. It’s here where we get the end result of Montag, the man who once took special pleasure in destroying books now takes pleasure in preserving them. If not for Clarisse who opened his eyes to the truth through questioning life, or Faber who revealed the truth and magic in the books, and Granger who taught Montag how to preserve the books Montag could have very well been a victim of his cities destruction. It’s clear that Montag was heavily influenced by these three Individuals changing him from a once law abiding citizen of the futuristic government to a refugee of the law discovering reasons worth fighting for regardless of outcome.
One of the main reasons that Montag changed so drastically over the course of the book was his curiosity. Montag spent a lot of time thinking about his job and started questioning everything he was doing. He starts wondering why books need to be burned and why things are the way that they are. Montag takes up a special interest in book and why things are this way. “Was-was it always like this? The firehouse, our work?” Montag asks Beatty showing his curiosity. Montag’s curiosity is what drives him to find out everything he can about books, society and the way that things used to be. It is only natural for him to begin to question everything especially because his job involves burning hundreds of books a day yet he was never told why these books need to burned. Imagine destroying an object everyday, and being told how important your job is. Naturally you would want to know why you are destroying these objects. This is what happened to Montag and Beatty tried to explain it to him and tells him he shouldn’t be too curious about it “A natural error, curiosity alone,” Beatty also asks Montag “Listen to me, Montag. Once to each fireman, at least once in his career, he just itches to know what these books are all about. He just aches to know. Isn't that so?” Curiosity is a very natural emotion and even Beatty, who tries to explain things to Montag and discourages books, even admits to looking a few books but says “I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing!” I believe that this would make Montag even more curious.
Montag forced people to stop reading, but he was a reader himself. Some people do not want others to better themselves and get further in life, so they try to bring others down to a weak point. When people take others down to a weak point, they can control them. Stopping people from reading, is a way to make them ignorant. Ignorant people do not know their left from their right, so it would be easy to manipulate them. Evidently, Montag knew that. Education is a blessing that should be cherished.
Gaining this knowledge is the very thing that ruined his life, though it gave him a sense of meaning. Through all of this Montag learns the information he finds in the books was what he needed all along. The life he was living was a lie. He was an ant to his society, and it must have come as a relief to finally realize he was no longer being controlled by his lack of intelligence.
Ray Bradbury includes several allusions in his novel “Fahrenheit 451.” Captain Beatty says, “Well the crisis is the past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold. We’re all the sheep and who have strayed at times” (Bradbury 102). That quote is very similar to the Old Testament in the Bible, “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). That Bible verse means people have gone off on their own path. They have decided to venture away from the Lord’s path to choose their own. Beatty is inevitably telling Montag that everybody tries to take their own path venturing away from “herd,” referring to his possession of the books. Montag knows he shouldn’t have them, but he chooses his own path and ventures away from the herd. The "herd" is burning books while Montag is venturing away from the herd and is instead reading them, which is prohibited.
In the book Fahrenheit 451 , Montag undergoes major character development. He started from a weak, dependant individual, who could at most think for himself. Throughout the book, he slowly found more and more flaws in the society he had blindly trusted. At the end of the book, Montag is a strong-minded, focused individual who is not afraid to stand up for his opinion, but cares for his life. Montag sacrificed everything in his life (including his life) to stand up for his opinions, which he could never have done in the beginning of the book. Everything Montag did had a reason and he changed because of those actions.
As I have mentioned, Montag is like all the others at the commencement of the novel: loving his job, never questioning an authority that has never given him any reason to obey. This all changes though when, while walking home from work, he encounters a young girl named Clarisse, who, through her innocence and oblivion to the world around her, shows him that society is crumbling around him and that he can be a part of the solution, not as everyone else is-the problem. For the first time in his life, he questions what he sees around him: his wife overdosing on pills, Clarisse getting hit by a speeding car and killed, and even the book burning which he does every night for money. Or was it amusement? Either way, curiosity gets the better of him as he "steals" a book from a raging fire during one of his raids.
Apathy is defined as a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. This generation is lacking apathy, as we do not care about others. Our society is obsessed with, and utterly focused on ourselves. We just use people for information, and then we keep moving forward. In Fahrenheit 451, the people are shown as only seeking this individual pleasure in the forms of technology like televisions and radios. Citizens are unconcerned about war and important information. They are too caught up in their own personal lives to be busy with things that affect everyone else. This book is all about what could happen to a completely apathetic society. Only some people like Montag, truly understand and realize that in order to break this constant state of lacking emotion, you need to walk and ask questions, and think deeply about things around you. One of the reasons Montag started to realize that this society was becoming apathetic was because of Beatty. Beatty was using reverse psychology to help, and make Montag aware of the fact
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction” ~ John F. Kennedy. The novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury portrays the theme of action vs. inaction as the main character Guy Montag chooses to take action for what he believes in, while others are too afraid to express how they actually feel. Bradbury predicts a future in which the government is mostly under control, and firefighters burn the homes of people with books as a punishment for breaking the law. Montag begins to see that books are valuable, so he takes action and plots a plan to try and save his society. Coincedently, the song “Brave” by Sara Bareilles corresponds with the same idea of taking action. Several lines from
Faber,a english professor, has a very important part on Montag’s view throughout the book. “Again he found himself thinking of the green pask a year ago.”(70). Bradbury used the old man to be as Montag’s alter ego or conscience, the person that he was trying to get to help him understand how to understand the books. After the interaction with Faber Montag goes back home to see Mildred’s friends and he reads them a part in some poetry he learned “Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore….”(96). Bradbury put this in the 2nd part because at first Montag didn't understand the books at first and he didn’t have the bravery to read in front of people, but he read it in front of MIllie’s friends. In part 3 we meet Granger a hobo as they say in Montag's society, another man that wants to ask why and how. He also influences Montag to wait for the war to end so they can spread their knowledge of the books they memorized. He also made Montag realize that he wasn’t providing anything for his community “What did you give to the city, Montag?.... Ashes….” (149). It also surprised Montag when Granger knew how the system worked and he didn’t “See that?...it’ll be you; right up at the end….” (141). Granger and Faber played a significant role in Montag’s “new life” by teaching him new
As time goes on Montag starts to question life and his attitude about everything that he thought was correct before just doesn’t seem right anymore. He is bothered by Clarisse’s death and has no one to go to for advice and guidance, until he finds a new mentor Faber. Faber helps him not only question the things he used to believe, but he explains ...
His choice of becoming into an individual himself changes him into a completely different person. As the book gets closer to ending, Montag ends up meeting up with professor Faber. Professor Faber is one of the outcasts because of everything he knows. Montag asked him for help because he started to become interested in reading books. Montag explains to Faber “Nobody listens any more. I can’t talk to the walls because they’re yelling at me. I can’t talk to my wife; she listens to the walls”, Montag started to feel different from the others because society started to move him away from his old actions (Bradbury 78). Also in the beginning, Clarisse asks Montag about the smell of kerosine. This part started to foreshadow Montag as an individual and thinking for himself. Montag would be characterized as the protagonist of this novel. Clarisse’s way of thinking was the reason that mostly influenced Montag to change into an individualist. Her personality made him want to be like Clarisse.
To begin with, Montag and Beatty, ignorance, destroy education at the beginning of the book. "It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed." This is the moment the reader gets inside Montag's head and sees that he