Dystopian Society In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 In the world of Fahrenheit 451, Fireman start fires instead of putting them out, books are illegal, and the minds of the people are clouded by mindless entertainment. Ray Bradbury wrote the novel to speak out about the society she lived in where the freedom to express oneself was under attack. The develop of the Characters in the story shows how people in this society react to a government that tries to control the minds of their citizens. Themes related to the government’s control on its citizens are highlighted by symbols, mechanical objects that moved and represented living organisms. They represent the people who are both dead and alive. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel about a world controlled by censorship that literacy
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techniques such as symbols to portray the theme that of a society destroyed by censorship. Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. His mother, Esther Marie, was an emigrate from Sweden. His father was Leonard spaulding Bradbury and the he worked for the Bureau of power and light as a lineman. During the Great Depression in 1932, his father could not find work so the family moved with him to Arizona. His family finally settled in Los Angeles where he got a job as a newsboy. In Paradowski’s book Ray Bradbury he says,“Neva Bradbury, an aunt, assisted his maturation as a person and writer by introducing him to the joys of fairy tales, L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, live theater, and the stories of Edgar Allen Poe” Ray Bradbury did not attend any school passed high school so his aunt became one of his greatest influences for his works. Bradbury was denied enlistment into the United States Army during World World Two due to his poor eyesight. This gave him the opportunity to be involved in the war through his writing. (Paradowski) When World War Two broke out, it heavily influenced his work. People in the United States started to live fast and busy lives afterwards. Laino said in his book Reading Montag as a post Don Quixote,”Car are faster, bill boards are larger, TVs are bigger and much more intrusive--everything appears as it was in that capitalist society that was at its peak expansion in the United States after the Second World War” (168). People at this point in time were trying to move away from the the harsh reality of war. The time period after World War Two was a time of new advancement in technology which lead to a society consumed by the media. The novel speaks out against the censorship and the media’s propaganda from the Nazi party (Ludeas). The book was written in 1953; time around the start of the Cold War. During this time, the government was arresting citizens for being communist. Freethinking was not valued at this time. (Kerr) The Cold War was not just a conflict between two nations but it was also a conflict between two different systems of government, Democracy and Communism. The American people were constantly paranoid that their capitalist society would be influenced by people with a communist ideology. Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a media controlled America. In Fahrenheit 451 people lived fast paced lives full of mindless entertainment. The people watch television on televisions took up an entire wall called wall TVs. They listened to shell radio with earbuds that are implanted into their ears. People who drive under the speed limit were arrested and books are illegal. The firemen start fires instead of putting them out. When a person was caught with books in their house, the firemen arrive with kerosene tanks on their backs. They sprayed down the whole house with the kerosene and burn the house and books together. The novel starts out with the main character, Montag, talking about how much enjoyment he gets from burning books. As he is walking home after he finishes his last job of the night, he meets a seventeen year old girl named clarisse Mcclellan. He walked her home while she asked many questions about his work. She talks about nature so Montag finds her strange. She finally asked if Montag was happy so he becomes very angry. This final question reveals to him how empty his life is. A few days later, Montag’s wife, Mildred, attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Two men come and suck the content of her stomach out and leave right afterwards. Montag arrives on a call of an old woman that is refusing to leave her house so the fireman can burn it down. Montag attempts to get her to leave the house but it is no use. The fireman man burned her alive inside the house. This is when Montag starts to question whether his is doing the right thing by being a fireman and he becomes more curious about what is so great about books. He sneaks some books into his house and hides them behind an air conditioner vent. Mildred becomes angry at him and does not understand why books are so great that he would risk his job for them. Beatty visits Montag’s house when he does not show up for work and he finds out that he is keeping the books. Beatty gives Montag twentyfour hours to read the books but he must turn them in afterward so they can be destroyed. Montag meets up with an english professor named Faber to help him understand the books. Faber agrees to help him and they come up with pan to discredit the fireman. Faber prints copies of books and Montag plants the books in the firemen’s houses. Montag goes to the fire station to turn in one of his books to beatty and the alarm sounds. It turns out that the alarm was for his own house and that his wife turned him in. Beatty forces him to burn his own house down. After Montag finishes burning his house, he catches beatty on fire and killes him. He knocks the other fireman out and takes off running. Then a mechanical hound attacks him and he destroys it with his flamethrower. Montag meets up with a guy named Granger who is part of a group called the book people. Their goal is to show the world the good in books. (Sparknotes) The novel tells a story of how protagonist, Montag, changes throughout the story by slowing down his life and taking in the big picture. The different characters in the novel represents three different types of people in an authoritarian society, the people that want to control others, The people that conform, and the people that rebel.
The protagonist of the story is a fireman and is dedicated to his work. The novel starts out with montag saying, ”It was a pleasure to burn”(Bradbury 3). Montag starts to have second thoughts about work when Clarisse Mcclellan asked him various questions. In Dietz Frank’s book The Fireman he says, “Montag starts out as a loyal member of the future society and only gradually shows signs of disaffection. His process towards rebellion is aided by a female companion and an older mentor.” Montag completely changes into a new type of person. Montag is a dynamic character because of his drastic change in his ideologies. Montag and his wife mildred also become foils later in the story because of how drastically different they become. Montag has chosen to rebel but Mildred would rather conform to the …show more content…
society. Mildred is Montag's wife. She follows the crowd and tries not to stand out. She has no interest in taking risk and she becomes upset when somebody tries to pull her into them.”Mildred’s character...represents the way in which people have been transformed from individuals into consumers by unremitting exposure to mass media”(Laino 169). Mildred is constantly watching television and she is not worried about building relationships, no even with her husband. She is not a free minded person and she allows other to control how she thinks. She is a static character because she is just as caught up in the media at the end of the book as she was in the beginning. Captain Beatty is the antagonist of the story because he stands for everything that the protagonist is against. He is responsible for purifying the world of freethinking. “Captain Beatty has the assignment of describing the society of Fahrenheit 451 from the point of view of the establishment”(Guido 167). Captain Beatty is part of the establishment that is responsible for controlling people. He is a static character because he holds to the same values and ideologies from the beginning of the novel to the end. He does not change at all and has the same mission of cleansing the world from books for the beginning and end of the novel. One of the main themes in this novel is that a fast busy lifestyle and an obsession with media has restricted people from thinking freely.
There is a minimum speed limit instead of a maximum. Clarisse Mcclellan said in the story, “‘I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flower, because they have never seen them slowly’”(Bradbury 9). Clarisse Mcclellan gives the solution to escaping the mind control society and allowing one's thoughts to become more independent. People must slow their life down, step back, and look at the larger picture. If people drive pass grass and flowers as fast as they can then all they can see is a bleary patch. The people are ignorant to their surrounding because they never took the time to notice them. Various characters and symbols are used to portray this
theme.
The novel uses different symbols to portray the destruction of censorship and restricted thinking. In Robin Reid’s article Genre, Censorship, and cultural changes she says that fire is the main symbol of the article and that it represents the destruction (43). Fire represents how free thinking has been destroyed and the destruction that the media has caused to the relationships of the characters. Other common symbols in the group depict things that appear both dead and alive. One of these symbols is a Mechanical Hound used to hunt down criminals. It represents a society where even lifer has been taken over by technology. (Kerr) These symbols are also paradoxes because they are both dead and alive. The symbols and other figurative language are used to highlight the themes within the story.
This novel tells of the damaging effects of censorship and an obsession with the media. They tell of the conflicts and the history of the time it is written. The different types of characters in the book shows the read how to step back and take in the whole picture. They teach them how to understand their surrounding and the role that they play in society. If one does not take control of their own life somebody else will.
techniques such as symbols to portray the theme that of a society destroyed by censorship. Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. His mother, Esther Marie, was an emigrate from Sweden. His father was Leonard spaulding Bradbury and the he worked for the Bureau of power and light as a lineman. During the Great Depression in 1932, his father could not find work so the family moved with him to Arizona. His family finally settled in Los Angeles where he got a job as a newsboy. In Paradowski’s book Ray Bradbury he says,“Neva Bradbury, an aunt, assisted his maturation as a person and writer by introducing him to the joys of fairy tales, L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, live theater, and the stories of Edgar Allen Poe” Ray Bradbury did not attend any school passed high school so his aunt became one of his greatest influences for his works. Bradbury was denied enlistment into the United States Army during World World Two due to his poor eyesight. This gave him the opportunity to be involved in the war through his writing. (Paradowski) When World War Two broke out, it heavily influenced his work. People in the United States started to live fast and busy lives afterwards. Laino said in his book Reading Montag as a post Don Quixote,”Car are faster, bill boards are larger, TVs are bigger and much more intrusive--everything appears as it was in that capitalist society that was at its peak expansion in the United States after the Second World War” (168). People at this point in time were trying to move away from the the harsh reality of war. The time period after World War Two was a time of new advancement in technology which lead to a society consumed by the media. The novel speaks out against the censorship and the media’s propaganda from the Nazi party (Ludeas). The book was written in 1953; time around the start of the Cold War. During this time, the government was arresting citizens for being communist. Freethinking was not valued at this time. (Kerr) The Cold War was not just a conflict between two nations but it was also a conflict between two different systems of government, Democracy and Communism. The American people were constantly paranoid that their capitalist society would be influenced by people with a communist ideology. Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a media controlled America. In Fahrenheit 451 people lived fast paced lives full of mindless entertainment. The people watch television on televisions took up an entire wall called wall TVs. They listened to shell radio with earbuds that are implanted into their ears. People who drive under the speed limit were arrested and books are illegal. The firemen start fires instead of putting them out. When a person was caught with books in their house, the firemen arrive with kerosene tanks on their backs. They sprayed down the whole house with the kerosene and burn the house and books together. The novel starts out with the main character, Montag, talking about how much enjoyment he gets from burning books. As he is walking home after he finishes his last job of the night, he meets a seventeen year old girl named clarisse Mcclellan. He walked her home while she asked many questions about his work. She talks about nature so Montag finds her strange. She finally asked if Montag was happy so he becomes very angry. This final question reveals to him how empty his life is. A few days later, Montag’s wife, Mildred, attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. Two men come and suck the content of her stomach out and leave right afterwards. Montag arrives on a call of an old woman that is refusing to leave her house so the fireman can burn it down. Montag attempts to get her to leave the house but it is no use. The fireman man burned her alive inside the house. This is when Montag starts to question whether his is doing the right thing by being a fireman and he becomes more curious about what is so great about books. He sneaks some books into his house and hides them behind an air conditioner vent. Mildred becomes angry at him and does not understand why books are so great that he would risk his job for them. Beatty visits Montag’s house when he does not show up for work and he finds out that he is keeping the books. Beatty gives Montag twentyfour hours to read the books but he must turn them in afterward so they can be destroyed. Montag meets up with an english professor named Faber to help him understand the books. Faber agrees to help him and they come up with pan to discredit the fireman. Faber prints copies of books and Montag plants the books in the firemen’s houses. Montag goes to the fire station to turn in one of his books to beatty and the alarm sounds. It turns out that the alarm was for his own house and that his wife turned him in. Beatty forces him to burn his own house down. After Montag finishes burning his house, he catches beatty on fire and killes him. He knocks the other fireman out and takes off running. Then a mechanical hound attacks him and he destroys it with his flamethrower. Montag meets up with a guy named Granger who is part of a group called the book people. Their goal is to show the world the good in books. (Sparknotes) The novel tells a story of how protagonist, Montag, changes throughout the story by slowing down his life and taking in the big picture. The different characters in the novel represents three different types of people in an authoritarian society, the people that want to control others, The people that conform, and the people that rebel.
The protagonist of the story is a fireman and is dedicated to his work. The novel starts out with montag saying, ”It was a pleasure to burn”(Bradbury 3). Montag starts to have second thoughts about work when Clarisse Mcclellan asked him various questions. In Dietz Frank’s book The Fireman he says, “Montag starts out as a loyal member of the future society and only gradually shows signs of disaffection. His process towards rebellion is aided by a female companion and an older mentor.” Montag completely changes into a new type of person. Montag is a dynamic character because of his drastic change in his ideologies. Montag and his wife mildred also become foils later in the story because of how drastically different they become. Montag has chosen to rebel but Mildred would rather conform to the …show more content…
society. Mildred is Montag's wife. She follows the crowd and tries not to stand out. She has no interest in taking risk and she becomes upset when somebody tries to pull her into them.”Mildred’s character...represents the way in which people have been transformed from individuals into consumers by unremitting exposure to mass media”(Laino 169). Mildred is constantly watching television and she is not worried about building relationships, no even with her husband. She is not a free minded person and she allows other to control how she thinks. She is a static character because she is just as caught up in the media at the end of the book as she was in the beginning. Captain Beatty is the antagonist of the story because he stands for everything that the protagonist is against. He is responsible for purifying the world of freethinking. “Captain Beatty has the assignment of describing the society of Fahrenheit 451 from the point of view of the establishment”(Guido 167). Captain Beatty is part of the establishment that is responsible for controlling people. He is a static character because he holds to the same values and ideologies from the beginning of the novel to the end. He does not change at all and has the same mission of cleansing the world from books for the beginning and end of the novel. One of the main themes in this novel is that a fast busy lifestyle and an obsession with media has restricted people from thinking freely.
There is a minimum speed limit instead of a maximum. Clarisse Mcclellan said in the story, “‘I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flower, because they have never seen them slowly’”(Bradbury 9). Clarisse Mcclellan gives the solution to escaping the mind control society and allowing one's thoughts to become more independent. People must slow their life down, step back, and look at the larger picture. If people drive pass grass and flowers as fast as they can then all they can see is a bleary patch. The people are ignorant to their surrounding because they never took the time to notice them. Various characters and symbols are used to portray this
theme.
The novel uses different symbols to portray the destruction of censorship and restricted thinking. In Robin Reid’s article Genre, Censorship, and cultural changes she says that fire is the main symbol of the article and that it represents the destruction (43). Fire represents how free thinking has been destroyed and the destruction that the media has caused to the relationships of the characters. Other common symbols in the group depict things that appear both dead and alive. One of these symbols is a Mechanical Hound used to hunt down criminals. It represents a society where even lifer has been taken over by technology. (Kerr) These symbols are also paradoxes because they are both dead and alive. The symbols and other figurative language are used to highlight the themes within the story.
This novel tells of the damaging effects of censorship and an obsession with the media. They tell of the conflicts and the history of the time it is written. The different types of characters in the book shows the read how to step back and take in the whole picture. They teach them how to understand their surrounding and the role that they play in society. If one does not take control of their own life somebody else will.