Happiness In Fahrenheit 451

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” (Dalai Lama). This quote directly defines how happiness is created within the two texts because it implies that happiness is self-made. When comparing the two, it is clear that both Bradbury and Rabin believe that people would be happier if they insisted upon more affable conversations. This is made evident in Fahrenheit 451 when Clarisse points out that Montag has a strange way of conversing because he does not think before he speaks (Bradbury 7). Similarly, Rabin discusses that happiness is derived from deep and meaningful conversations that enable lasting, intimate relationships. Likewise, Clarisse and Montag's relationship defines Montag's happiness and helps him realize that the life

he was living was not one of happiness, but rather one built from self-destruction (56).

The society in Fahrenheit 451 lacks love, faith, and happiness because it lacks relationships. Rabin suggests that relationships are the key to happiness because human beings naturally thrive off of human interactions and finding their purpose. Subsequently, one can presume that happiness is similar in both texts because they imply that happiness in self-made.

“Everyone wants happiness; nobody wants pain, but you can't have a rainbow without a little rain.” (Unknown). Incidentally, Bradbury and Rabin's ideas differ in that Bradbury insists that the novel's society bases their lives around false happiness; however, Rabin suggests that true happiness is defined through “discussing the sate of the world and the meaning of life”. In Fahrenheit 451, the majority society thinks that they are happy

because they are filling their lives with constant motion and titillation to keep themselves busy; however, they are simply suppressing their sadness by keeping distractions present. In present-day society, happiness is created through real life connections, even if it is created by approaching the faults and issues in society. Meanwhile, the society that Bradbury creates masks the world's flaws by distracting themselves with their ideas of happiness: Televisons, “families,” and reckless activities. Under those circumstances, Bradbury's futuristic society ignores difficult or uncomfortable thoughts and experiences in the hopes that they will achieve true happiness. By way of contrast, Rabin implicates a study done by Dr. Matthias Mehl in which Mehl believed “as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you're happy, and if you go into the existential depths you'll be unhappy;” however, the study Mehl conducted proved his philosophy to be quite the opposite. Considering this, Mehl's study suggested that human interaction induces happiness because it feeds our craving for purpose. Overall, the ideas of happiness in Bradbury's novel and Rabin's article differ due to the fact that they contradict one another.
To sum up, Bradbury and Rabin's ideas on the source of happiness have both similarities and differences that connect the two. Fahrenheit 451 implies that happiness can be found in distractions, while “Talk Deeply, Be Happy?” express that confrontation and relationships are the roots of happiness. One can conclude that their ideas of happiness counteract with one another.