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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. Clarisse is the happy one in the book. She is a young girl who meets Montag one day when he is taking a walk. She can tell that Montag doesn’t look happy. “He wears his happiness like a mask.”(pg.5) This is saying that his happiness was just to cover up his true discontentment inside of him. Because he is wearing his happiness just to cover up his discontent, Clarisse tries to show him that he is truly not happy. He tries to say that he is happy, but he knows that he really isn’t happy after all and he thought he was. The Healthy Living Website says ... ... middle of paper ... ...about the Clarisse girl dying. This upset Montag that she didn’t tell him till 4 days after it happened. Today we do not take death seriously. It’s because of the video games that have a lot of death in them. This kind of numbs us of death says the Do You Know What Your Child Is Playing website. We are like Mildred, how we don’t even think death is a big deal unless it is someone we know. In conclusion, i don’t think that we are happy. I think that most people just say they are happy but are actually discontent. The people I talked about in this essay show that today in our world we are not very happy. It is kind of scary to find out that you have to question if you are really happy. So ask yourself right now if you think you are happy, or are you actually sad inside. Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. “Fahrenheit 451.” New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks 2013.
And everything she said made Montag start to think. While Montag and Clarisse were walking, Clarisse asked Montag “ How long is it since you were really bothered?” she said knowing he didn’t think enough to even be bothered by something. “About something important, about something real?” He heard this question and never thought about it, he reacted impulsively and thought she was crazy for asking such a question. Clarisse later asked him a very deep question and said “Are you happy?” Of course Montag said the first thing that he thought he felt, and said that yes, he was happy. but clarisse knew the truth, that he didnt know what happy was to be able to say that and thats why she asked. Even though Montag didnt think about the question then, once he enters his house he cant shake the question. When clarisse asks these questions she asks them seriously. However when Montag hears these questions he thinks they are obscure and laughs as if his answers are obvious. So clarisse asks him another brain teasing question and says “You laugh when i haven’t been funny, and you answer right off. you never stop to think what i have asked you.” This really gets into Montags head, weather he knows it, or not. And things Soon begin to change.
The theme of Fahrenheit 451 outlines the value of happiness throughout the plot because watching Montag live without joy helps the reader see its vital role in everyday life. Guy Montag lives in a society where control is prominent and where happiness does not matter. At first, he does not realize that he is not satisfied with his life until he meets Clarisse, a young woman in her teenage years. Clarisse asks Guy a question that is seen as too inquisitive in their world; she asks, “ ‘Are you happy?’ ” (Bradbury). This question takes Montag aback because he realizes that his happiness is one that he pretends to have, not one of pure and raw emotion. After this realization, Montag tries to see through Clarisse’s eyes and wonders why books
Bradbury describes Clarisse as a teenage girl who is a genuine lover of life. The novel describes that she is a nature lover and is very outgoing. Bradbury has Clarisse contradict Montag's wife Mildred. Clarisse was the main reason Montag starting questioning his happiness and books. Bradbury adds Clarisse’s character to the novel, so her words can be help Montag examine his current life decisions. By her doing this Montag suddenly comes to see some of the missing pieces of his life. Ray Bradbury uses his power of words through Clarisse’s character by having her be different from everyone else in the
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.
... ideas in books and understand them. Before this Montag never questioned the way he lives, he was blinded by all the distractions. The role that Clarisse plays in the book enables Montag to break free of the ignorance.
When Clarisse asks Montag a question right before she leaves from their first meet, she asks, “‘Are you happy?’ she said. ‘Am I what?’ he cried. But she was gone. (...) [Montag later asks himself] ‘Happy! Of all the nonsense,’ he stopped laughing” (10). Clarisse questions Montag’s happiness because she believes that Montag is different than other people in society, (23) but notices he still has an superficial happiness like the rest of the citizens. Asking Montag if he’s happy caused Montag to realize he’s not happy, and changed his perspective of happiness. In addition, when Montag recites a section of Dover Beach to Mildred’s friends, Bradbury describes, “Mrs. Phelps was crying. The others(...) watched her crying grow very loud as her face squeezed itself out of shape. They sat, not touching her, bewildered with her display. She sobbed uncontrollably. Montag himself was stunned and shaken” (101). Mrs. Phelps starts crying because of Dover Beach referring to a war, which her husband is in during that section of the novel. The part of Dover Beach that Montag read displayed ignorance of love and happiness, which affected Mrs. Phelps because of not truly knowing what happiness and being in love feels like. This goes to show that when a book, or person questions
Love and emotions, essential to one's happiness and personality. That is something Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, would seem to agree with. He portrays the theme of connection vs isolation in Fahrenheit 451 through love and emotions. The first section of the novel has the protagonist, Guy Montag, encounter a 17 year old girl by the name of Clarisse. Right away readers can tell that she is a an oddity in the sense that she ,in a society devoid of true feelings and emotions, exhibits happiness, curiosity, and plenty of other emotions. Montag and Clarisse are walking together when Clarisse plucks a dandelion from the ground and explains to Montag, “Have you ever heard of rubbing it under your chin? ...If it rubs off that means I'm in love. Has it?”
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).
During Clarisse and Montag’s first encountering, Clarisse asks, “Are you happy?” (Bradbury 10). The question Clarisse asked Montag motivates him to doubt about the meaning of his life and what he does as a firefighter. Clarisse’s interrogation revealed the absence of love, pleasure, and contentment in his life. Walking home after meeting Clarisse, Montag could not stop the inquiry of what he has done in the last ten years of being a fireman and why he does it. It encourages Montag to start his journey to find explanations of why the government wants their people to conform and the reasons behind burning books. This novel would not be able to function without the motivations of Clarisse towards
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.
Montag is influenced by Clarisse a lot. And, her impact on him is tremendous. She questions his whole life, teaches him to appreciate the simple things, and to care about other people and their feelings. “You're peculiar, you're aggravating, yet you're easy to forgive..”(Bradbury 23) Through all Clarisse's questioning, Montag knows that she is trying to help him. Because of her help and impact on him, Montag is changed forever.
The novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, takes place in a dystopian society where they ban literature, drown out social interaction with modern technology, and anyone who merges outside of these societal rules are oppressed in cruel and inhumane ways. At the beginning of the book, the protagonist Guy Montag is a part of this toxic dystopian cycle until he is introduced to many characters that influence him to change and develop new characteristics. From Clarisse he learns happiness, Faber, he learns friendship, and from Granger he learns leadership.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book set in the 24th century written by Ray Bradbury which tells the story of Guy Montag who is a fireman. The book explores a dystopian world where firemen work to start fires and burn books. Dystopia is a word that is used to refer to the opposite of Utopia. Hence, it represents a world that is terrible in all ways imaginable. A dystopian novel, therefore, portrays a disastrous future. In this book, the protagonist is a proud fireman who takes pride in his work which involves burning illegal books and the homes of their owners. However, with time, he starts to question his work and the purpose of his life in general. Throughout the book, the fireman is faced by numerous dilemmas concerning his life and the problems
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.
Clarisse is Montag’s first mentor in his journey; she is the one who first opens his eyes to the world around him, as well as asking the ultimate question “Are you happy?” (7) To which Montag cried “Am I what?” He never gave whether he was actually, truly happy a real, legitimate thought in his entire life. He just woke up, ate breakfast, went to work, ate lunch, went home, ate dinner, and went to sleep; and all with a big grin fixed on his face. But now, after a bit of consideration he came to the realization that “He was not happy…. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask a...