Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Fahrenheit 451 research essay
Commentary on fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 research essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Fahrenheit 451 research essay
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a powerful book about a future American society that fears and hates books and instead prefers to live lives of ignorant, entertained bliss while the world darkens around them. In the end, this society is nearly decimated by a nuclear holocaust unleashed by America's latest war. The protagonist of this story, Guy Montag, is a firefighter whose job it is to burn books, but he eventually turns on the fire department and survives the nuclear bombs by fleeing to the countryside. There he finds a group of wandering former scholars who are desperately trying to preserve the books of old by establishing a vast network of former readers who memorize the great works they have read. They believe the key to rebuilding society lies in the shelves of this human library. If I were Guy Montag and I could only save five books for humanity, I would choose books that would aid society in balancing its rationality with its emotional impulses. As long as Homo sapiens have roamed the Earth, man has asked himself the question: why should I make this choice? This question asks the inquirer to answer based on his reason, his passion, or a combination of both. This future society will need to determine the roles that reason and passion will play in the important decisions to come, and the books I have selected will help them make informed choices. These books are The Complete Anthology of the Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare, A Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, A Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Few writers, if any, have captured the full breadth of human emotion like the British playwright and poet William Shakespea...
... middle of paper ...
...measure of any great society is its ability not only to rebuild from the ashes of catastrophe but also to learn from the errors that led to disaster. The ultimate lesson of Fahrenheit 451 is that to ignore reality is to suffer its consequences. The Americans in the book are doomed because they collectively shun both reason and passion. They shun reason because it requires the exertion of oneself to arduous thought, and they shun passion because emotions create the possibility of feeling disappointment along with triumph. To overcome their current circumstances and to prove America's greatness, the survivors will have to devote themselves to bridging the connection between their minds and their hearts in order to make each of them worthy of Shakespeare's declaration, "the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, 'This was a man!"
In the book Fahrenheit 451 the theme is a society/world that revolves around being basically brain washed or programmed because of the lack of people not thinking for themselves concerning the loss of knowledge, and imagination from books that don't exist to them. In such stories as the Kurt Vonnegut's "You have insulted me letter" also involving censorship to better society from vulgarity and from certain aspects of life that could be seen as disruptive to day to day society which leads to censorship of language and books. Both stories deal with censorship and by that society is destructed in a certain way by the loss of knowledge from books.
Fahrenheit 451 Montag, a fireman who ignites books into glowing embers that fall into ashes as black as night. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a message in which society has opened its doors to mass devastation. Guy Montag, a “fireman”, burns houses that have anything to do with books instead of putting fires out like the job of a real fireman. In Montag’s society, books are considered taboo, and owning books can lead to dire consequences. Ray Bradbury portrays a society in which humans have suffered a loss of self, humanity, and a powerful control from the government resulting in a fraudulent society.
Imagine a world in which there are no books, and every piece of information you learn comes from a screen. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, this nightmare is a reality. In Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is a fireman who instead of putting out fires burns books. He eventually meets Clarisse who changes his outlook on life and inspires him to read books (which are outlawed). This leads to Guy being forced on the run from the government. The culture, themes, and characters in Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 construct a dystopian future that is terrifying to readers.
Perseverance pushes people towards what they believe in, a person’s perseverance is determined upon their beliefs. A person with strong beliefs will succeed greater to someone who does not. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag perseveres against society as well as himself in order to demolish censorship. Perseverance embraces values and drives people closer to their goals.
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by author Ray Bradbury we are taken into a place of the future where books have become outlawed, technology is at its prime, life is fast, and human interaction is scarce. The novel is seen through the eyes of middle aged man Guy Montag. A firefighter, Ray Bradbury portrays the common firefighter as a personal who creates the fire rather than extinguishing them in order to accomplish the complete annihilation of books. Throughout the book we get to understand that Montag is a fire hungry man that takes pleasure in the destruction of books. It’s not until interacting with three individuals that open Montag’s eyes helping him realize the errors of his ways. Leading Montag to change his opinion about books, and more over to a new direction in life with a mission to preserve and bring back the life once sought out in books. These three individual characters Clarisse McClellan, Faber, and Granger transformed Montag through the methods of questioning, revealing, and teaching.
Imagine a society where owning books is illegal, and the penalty for their possession—to watch them combust into ashes. Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, illustrates just such a society. Bradbury wrote his science fiction in 1951 depicting a society of modern age with technology abundant in this day and age—even though such technology was unheard of in his day. Electronics such as headphones, wall-sized television sets, and automatic doors were all a significant part of Bradbury’s description of humanity. Human life styles were also predicted; the book described incredibly fast transportation, people spending countless hours watching television and listening to music, and the minimal interaction people had with one another. Comparing those traits with today’s world, many similarities emerge. Due to handheld devices, communication has transitioned to texting instead of face-to-face conversations. As customary of countless dystopian novels, Fahrenheit 451 conveys numerous correlations between society today and the fictional society within the book.
”I’ve always said poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowles to Montag in Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451 (103). Mrs. Bowles thinks written words can make an individual really gloomy and disconsolate. Because the goal of this society is to always be satisfied, and to stay satisfied people watch TV, made up stories, which never makes them think or wonder, that is why Mrs. Bowles is convinced that poems are nasty. How does banning of books affect a whole community? Does the human civilization really differ without them? According to Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury assembles a civilization that is affected in three ways from having a lack of books: more brutality is among people, preternatural relationships cultivate, and intelligent capabilities decrease.
451 degrees, the temperature at which paper burns. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, people are emotionless and powerless against the controlling government; the book describes a destructive, dystopian society. Guy Montag, the main character goes through a change throughout the book on his views of his society. Montag’s society is like a rock on the edge of a cliff, bound for destruction. His society lacks curiosity, emotions. and government control.
This idea seems to be important because according to Clarisse, most people are afraid of firemen. It appears to be something that is obvious, but Montag is unaware of this issue. It may be that he is oblivious to his surroundings or that all firemen are convinced that what they do is for the greater good of the world. Also, this part introduces the type of person that Clarisse is. She seemingly looks like an outcast of society, or maybe just someone different. She’s unique because while most wouldn’t want to appro...
In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, irony is used to convey information and it contributes to the overall theme of the novel. Written during the era of McCarthyism, Fahrenheit 451 is about a society where books are illegal. This society believes that being intellectual is bad and that a lot of things that are easily accessible today should be censored. The overall message of the book is that censorship is not beneficial to society, and that it could cause great harm to one’s intelligence and social abilities. An analysis of irony in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury shows that this literary technique is effective in contributing to the overall theme of the novel because it gives more than one perspective on how censorship can negatively affect a society.
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 on 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.
One of England’s greatest literary figures, William Shakespeare, expressed the truth about coveting knowledge by saying that “ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven” (William Shakespeare Quotes). One must assume that Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451, learned from this. Bradbury’s novel shares a similar portrayal towards coveting knowledge. In the novel the protagonist realizes that he is living in a world where knowledge is lost. People abide by rules and restrictions given to them by the government. There is nothing in this society to make people think about how valuable knowledge is, except for books. The protagonist is a fireman whose job is to seek out books and destroy the contents. The mass population believes that books are a waste of time and useless. The protagonist also believes this until a change of heart leads to a journey of identity and curiosity. Bradbury believes that this type of world will eventually turn into our own. Clearly, Ray Bradbury’s outlook for the future of man is grim because he represses intellectual endeavor, lacks critical thinking, and becomes destructive.
“It was a pleasure to burn” Bradbury (1) Is the first line of Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451, the line itself is thought by the book's main protagonist Guy Montag. Although from that line alone he wound not exactly seem like the ideal protagonist of a science fiction novel. Throughout the story Montag has some life altering experiences that change him; he starts out as a fireman (the kind that burn books, as opposed to saving lives) and ends up belonging to group of intellectuals who memorize books in order to someday write them down again. Ever since he met a young girl named Clarisse he had been consumed with thoughts, thoughts of what things looked like, thoughts of what things smelled like and even thoughts of why things were the way they are. Guy Montag goes through many changes in a fairly brief period in the story. Throughout his journey he has three mentors: Clarisse, Faber and Granger. Clarisse is the first, the one who opens Montag’s eyes to the world around him, Faber gives him wisdom and helps him shape what he is now thinking and feeling, and Granger helps him establish his own identity.
Monsters under the bed, drowning, and property damage are topics many people have nightmares about; nightmares about a dystopian future, on the other hand, are less common. Despite this, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984 display a nightmarish vision about a dystopian society in the near future. Fahrenheit 451 tells of Guy Montag’s experience in a society where books have become illegal and the population has become addicted to television. Meanwhile, 1984 deals with Winston Smith’s affairs in Oceania, a state controlled by the totalitarian regime known as the Party. This regime is supposedly headed by a man named Big Brother. By examining the dehumanized settings, as well as the themes of individuality and manipulation, it becomes clear that novels successfully warn of a nightmarish future.
Of all literary works regarding dystopian societies, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps one of the most bluntly shocking, insightful, and relatable of them. Set in a United States of the future, this novel contains a government that has banned books and a society that constantly watches television. However, Guy Montag, a fireman (one who burns books as opposed to actually putting out fires) discovers books and a spark of desire for knowledge is ignited within him. Unfortunately his boss, the belligerent Captain Beatty, catches on to his newfound thirst for literature. A man of great duplicity, Beatty sets up Montag to ultimately have his home destroyed and to be expulsed from the city. On the other hand, Beatty is a much rounder character than initially apparent. Beatty himself was once an ardent reader, and he even uses literature to his advantage against Montag. Moreover, Beatty is a critical character in Fahrenheit 451 because of his morbid cruelty, obscene hypocrisy, and overall regret for his life.