Fahrenheit 451 Society Analysis
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury shows how everyone in a society can be very similar and how it stunts the growth of the community. Being a fireman, Montag takes on the role of burning books and erasing knowledge from his community. The society took away the privilege of reading books a long time ago to ensure that everyone received the same information and that nobody would be smarter than anyone else. This made people very closed off to new ideas and materials given to them. People thought that being equal would make everyone “happy,” but in reality, it only creates a very self-absorbed world. Everyone is oblivious to the fact that their society has many flaws, and change is not being created because nobody is willing to question the world
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One thing that has been put in place for a long time is the fact that communication between groups of people is considered “odd.” Socializing is not encouraged and is often frowned upon. Clarisse, a teenage girl that does not follow the “rules” of the community, mentioned that, “‘...my mother and father and uncle sitting around, talking. It’s like being a pedestrian, only rarer’” (9). Not following such societal norms can also lead to consequences, including getting arrested for being a pedestrian or getting your house burned down because you own books. Being different can also lead to death, as we see in Clarisse’s case. She refuses to change the way she acts for the society and as a result she has to face the consequences, and as the text states, “‘The poor girl is better off dead’” (60). The community highly discourages people to think for themselves and be unique. This causes people to be afraid of breaking the norms. Not having the ability to change the society makes people feel hopeless. The fact that people do not care for their community and what happens to it contributes to the lack of progress being made. In the real world, there are still a lot of people that believes that they cannot make a change. We have so many factors that control us each and every day, including the government, the laws, school and authority figures, yet we don’t question how our systems
One thing that has been put in place for a long time is the fact that communication between groups of people is considered “odd.” Socializing is not encouraged and is often frowned upon. Clarisse, a teenage girl that does not follow the “rules” of the community, mentioned that, “‘...my mother and father and uncle sitting around, talking. It’s like being a pedestrian, only rarer’” (9). Not following such societal norms can also lead to consequences, including getting arrested for being a pedestrian or getting your house burned down because you own books. Being different can also lead to death, as we see in Clarisse’s case. She refuses to change the way she acts for the society and as a result she has to face the consequences, and as the text states, “‘The poor girl is better off dead’” (60). The community highly discourages people to think for themselves and be unique. This causes people to be afraid of breaking the norms. Not having the ability to change the society makes people feel hopeless. The fact that people do not care for their community and what happens to it contributes to the lack of progress being made. In the real world, there are still a lot of people that believes that they cannot make a change. We have so many factors that control us each and every day, including the government, the laws, school and authority figures, yet we don’t question how our systems