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Essay on thecompare & contrast the society in "Fahrenheit 451" to our society today
Essay on thecompare & contrast the society in "Fahrenheit 451" to our society today
Dystopian literature characteristics
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"Nobody listens any more. . . . I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll make sense." Utopias and Dystopias are alike in the fact they both appeal to the feuding political thinkers. Once a challenging idea is brought to attention, criticism immediately follows the claim. In Fahrenheit 451, the sense of nationalism wasn’t used because everyone acted as equals in whom no one could read books legally. Fahrenheit 451 was published as a dystopian novel, one that epitomizes the meaning of a futuristic controlling state. Ray Bradbury’s novel is one of misfortune where every citizen lived their life in censorship. It describes a society of the future that maintains a culture of an illiterate populace without books. Even though as a young boy Bradbury loved to read books he saw the world for what it was going to be. This is why Fahrenheit 451 is continually taught in schools today and will be taught for a long period time. “ Fahrenheit 451 was selected by a national endowment for the arts (NEA) for its big read! It shows a society without reading.” (3) Its literary techniques developed brilliantly organized, along with its life changing message. His dystopian novel made the pedestal of a warning; although his purpose wasn’t to predict the future, his valiant claims came close to reality. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury raises questions to people to wonder as to why our society will heavily depend on technology, become uneducated and resume a life of communism and one without religion. Many say that his surroundings influenced a thought of negativity which was shown in several of his novels.
As a kid, approximately the age of 15, Ray Bradbury consumed himself with knowledge of literary works ...
... middle of paper ...
...as made clear, only thing is, he was right.
Works Cited
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6. Johnston, Amy B. “Fahreheit 451 Misinterpreted.” 30 May 2007. Web. 16 February. 2011
5. Mackey, Erin Shelby, (ed. “Fahrenheit 451, Themes.” Gradsaver, 16 October 2005 web. 16 February 2011.
2. Onderzoek, Vrij H. "How 'Fahrenheit 451' Trends Threaten Intellectual Freedom." Historical Revisionism by Vrij Historisch Onderzoek. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. .
1. Sterling, Bruce. "Major Science Fiction Themes:utopias and Dystopias." Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. .
7.”The big read, Fahrenheit 451.” The big read, national endowment for the arts. Web. 20.2011.
Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 leads from an average beginning by introducing a new world for readers to become enveloped in, followed by the protagonist’s descent into not conforming to society’s rules, then the story spirals out of control and leaves readers speechless by the actions taken by the main character and the government of this society. This structure reinforces the author’s main point of how knowledge is a powerful entity that would force anyone to break censorship on a society.
The theme of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 can be viewed from several different angles. First and foremost, Bradbury's novel gives an anti-censorship message. Bradbury understood censorship to be a natural outcropping of an overly tolerant society. Once one group objects to something someone has written, that book is modified and censorship begins. Soon, another minority group objects to something else in the book, and it is again edited until eventually the book is banned altogether. In Bradbury's novel, society has evolved to such an extreme that all literature is illegal to possess. No longer can books be read, not only because they might offend someone, but because books raise questions that often lead to revolutions and even anarchy. The intellectual thinking that arises from reading books can often be dangerous, and the government doesn't want to put up with this danger. Yet this philosophy, according to Bradbury, completely ignores the benefits of knowledge. Yes, knowledge can cause disharmony, but in many ways, knowledge of the past, which is recorded in books, can prevent man from making similar mistakes in the present and future.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about a materialistic society that has forgotten social interaction with each other. This materialistic society is where Bradbury believed society today is headed<THE TENSES HERE ARE A LITTLE CONFUSING.>. The materialistic society in Fahrenheit 451 created through Bradbury's cynic views of society<THIS IS A FRAGMENT SENTANCE.> His views of society are over-exaggerated in contrast with today's events, especially in the areas of censorship and media mediocrity.
Ray Bradbury's vision of a disordered world was expressed in his book Fahrenheit 451. Set in the future, it deals with a man's struggle between his destructive government position and his inner self-conscience. Guy Montag was a fireman but he did not put out fires. Instead, he created them through the burning of books. This was what Bradbury was trying to imply through the title of his book, Fahrenheit 451, the temperature at which books burn. Montag was leading a fairly happy life until he met a girl, Clarisse, who aroused his deepest feelings and fears. He became curious about the contents of books and wondered why they were so feared. This led him through a series of events which changed his life forever. When Montag asked Beatty about the burning of books he was told, "If you don't want a man to be unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." The futurist government displayed in Fahrenheit 451 tried to prevent any feelings or opinions contrary to their own because they did not want to be challenged. Instead, they fed unwanted junk into the minds of their people through the parlor, a wall to wall television. This machine, that does not inspire the thinking process, lead them to make the conclusion that their world revolves around it and nothing else.
Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.
Often, dystopian novels are written by an author to convey a world that doesn’t exist, but criticizes aspects of the present that could lead to this future. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1951 but discusses issues that have only increased over time. The encompassing issue that leads to the dystopic nature of this novel is censorship of books. The government creates a world in which it is illegal to have any books. Firemen are enforcers of this law by being the ones to burn the books and burn the buildings where the books were found. By censoring the knowledge found in books, the government attempts to rid the society of corruption caused by “the lies” books are filled with in hopes the people will never question. In Fahrenheit 451, censorship is a paradox.
Roberts, Edgar V., Jacobs, Henry E. “Literature.” The Lesson. 470-475. Toni Cade Bambara. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. 2001
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.
Wood, Diane S. Essay on: "Fahrenheit 451" Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol.1. Detroit: Gale1997.pg 153-55
e a world where books were banned and all words were censored. Freedom of speech has always been considered to be the most fundamental of the human rights. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury emphasizes the importance of freedom of speech by giving readers a glimpse of how the world would be if written works were prohibited. The novel is considered to be a classic because it can usually be linked to society. The novel’s relevance is connected to its themes and its overall message. The themes of loneliness, alienation, conformity, and paranoia play a crucial role in the novel by showing how censorship can transform society negatively.
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 showed us a world in which people found it acceptable, even preferable, to remain ignorant about the state of their world and face the darker aspects of their own humanity. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale envisioned a theocratic government named Gilead that induced women into the servitude of military commanders for the purpose of procreation. In both of these bleak contemplations of the future, people are discouraged from and harshly punished for expressing any sort of dissent. Perspectives that do not align with the status quo are discouraged, perhaps even feared, and consequently censored. These authors' purpose was perhaps not to foretell a future, but to examine parts of society that necessitated examination in order to raise awareness. In both of these novels, any such questioning or dissent is unacceptable, as Atwood's protagonist Offred explains that “thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last” (Atwood 8). However, Ray Bradbury's city was razed due to its citizens' apathy and lack of attentiveness. Bradbury's choice of expression even faced hardship in the real world, for he himself “had experienced many pressures to alter his work so as to make it more acceptable to this or that group” (Patai 1). These thoughtful pieces of literature have provoked discussion on the ability to speak and express freely, and ironically, have themselves faced bouts of criticism and censorship. These are freedoms that Diane Wood reminds us “must be vigilantly guarded in order to be maintained” (Wood 4). As Americans, the evolution of our society has depended on those very freedoms. Through examination of these two novels, we will see how the stifling of the fundamental freedoms of discourse and ind...
Kerr, Calum A. “Literary Contexts in Novels: Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451.’” (2008) Literary Reference Center. Web. 1 March 2011.
Written in a war fearing nation, by an informally educated man, Ray Bradbury pretty much predicted the future. Uniquely, his novel Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopic novel, displaying the building problems of censorship and media. The plot shadows the protagonist, Montag, in his efforts to turn society around. The resemblance between the novel’s world and the current world are stunning, in a less glamorous way. Conversely, because there is still access to books and principled media, some believe the world today is not like the world in Fahrenheit 451; this is incorrect because, like in the novel, people today allow technology to interfere with their relationships and they think and feel little.
When Fahrenheit 451 came out in 1953, Bradbury had created a new world that readers at the time viewed as profound and alarming. Readers felt this way because prior to Bradbury’s novel, they hadn’t read anything that showed what life would be like without books. “The written word supports objectivity, criticism, and analysis: it enlarges and depends awareness and thus supports the civic order of modern republics, as they came to be at the end of the Nineteenth century” (Bertonneau). Before World War II, American citizens were much less influenced by things such as television and radio (McGiveron). Instead, they gathered information from books and newspapers. Fahrenheit 451 was able to be so influential because it made citizens realize how important books truly in the development of society. “Words provoke imagination and foster independence from stock images” (Bertonneau).