Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

Submitted By
Words 1129
Pages 5
What if your house was burned down because you did something illegal, like keeping a shelf full of books? This concept, along with others, is displayed throughout the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451 is about a utopia gone wrong and converted into a dystopia due to an over-ruling government and a corrupt society where man’s best friend is his TV. One man, named Guy Montag, is a firefighter who burns books for a living, but learns to disagree with the ways of society when he meets a girl named Clarisse McClellan. Although this society sounds a little strange, our society today can relate, but still differ from their idea of a “correct” society. But in the end, both societies have their own views on the way people should …show more content…
27). Another example of their way to deal with their emotions are their sleeping pills. These pills, like any other medicine, can be harmful if overdosed. The people of the society in Fahrenheit 451 sometimes abuse these pills and use them as a way out of their hidden miserable feelings, instead of capsules used for a sleeping aid, by taking more than the recommended amount. Montag’s wife, Mildred, is a victim of this issue. She had taken the whole bottle of pills “...which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty…” (pg. 11) and after consumption of the capsules had been lying on her bed, barely breathing, and in need of medical help. When help, two men and a machine, arrived, they were not concerned about this issue, but instead said they “...get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, [they] had the special machines built” (pg. 13). Since there are so many cases, these men, who aren't even qualified doctors, take

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Fahrenheit 451 A Cautionary Tale (there may be grammar and or spelling mistakes.) By: Class: English 3 Honors Teacher: Fahrenheit 451 is a novel set in a futuristic America focused on a “fireman” named Montag Montag. In this world firemen like Montag set the blazes rather than extinguish them. Books are banned and if they were found in your house your home was burned with the books in it. As a result of owning a book you would languish for the rest of your days in a government facility. Montag had no problems with his job after all who wouldn’t love getting paid to burn things? Then one day they got a call about a woman who had a whole library of books in her house. When they arrived to do their job only one thing was wrong. The police hadn’t taken the woman away yet. It is here the story begins, with a woman who refuses to leave even as they are dousing her home with kerosene. When they try to remove her she reveals a kitchen match in her hand scaring them out of the house, she then lights the match committing suicide. Shaken by this incident no one talks on the ride back to the station. On his way home Montag runs into his new neighbor, seventeen year old Clarisse McClellan. A chatty, young girl who opens his eyes to the world of nature and not being one of societies stooges. After this meeting Montag returns home to find his wife overdosed on sleeping pills and promptly calls for help. Instead of paramedics he gets two technicians who are nothing more than plumbers...

Words: 2282 - Pages: 10

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...socializing; but they spend more time social networking, playing video games, and browsing the web. Today, just as the author Ray Bradbury predicted in the novel Fahrenheit 451, the addiction to media has led to a substantial amount of time loss, social isolation, and an increase in negative effects on children’s and teen’s well being. The youth would rather be on their cell phones than spend time with their families. The media usage of teens has jumped to over “53 hours a week” (Toppo). “I feel like my days would be boring without it” (Lewin). It is not only that teens would rather spend time on their phones; they would rather stay in their rooms then go out and do something proactive or spend...

Words: 692 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Psychological Changes from Technology New technological advances take place each day; however, people may not know all of the lasting or current effects technology has on our brain. In the books Fahrenheit 451 and 1984, the societies are very susceptible to dangerous technology without the society caring. Technology changes the brain’s chemical neurons and responses. A human’s brain changes very easily, some of these changes I will be discussing in this article are how teens, the frontal lobe, attention, addiction, and memory are affected from technology. Teenagers and Technology The evolution of technology has lead to our society revolving around social media. Our society has a general want for new products. This has led to a drastic...

Words: 964 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Human interactions and relationships are now massively altered because of the dependency of technology in our lives. This idea is seen in literature through Ray Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451 and in today's society, through, “How Technology Affects Human Relationships” by Bryan Kramer. Fahrenheit 451 is based on a futuristic society where everyone is engulfed in their televisions and other technologies. That being so, the relationships people have with each other are just enough to say hi when they see each other in passing- if they notice the other person that is. Constantly being connected to an electronic is common in our society and the Fahrenheit 451 society; “And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic...

Words: 509 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Bradbury’s writing career officially started in 1939 when he was publicized in a magazine for his short story “Pendulum” (Literary 30). Fahrenheit 451 is among one of Bradbury’s most famous works; it is mandatory reading in many high schools across the nation. It takes place in the future where the plot consists of a man who is employed to burn books, but develops a passionate love for reading and risks his life to save books from their extinction. Another famous work of Bradbury’s is The Martian Chronicles which is said to have established him a legitimate writer (Newsmakers). The Martian Chronicles is a novel that spans the time from 1999 to 2026, where humans have to colonize Mars because of an aftermath of a nuclear...

Words: 1277 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, it takes place somewhere in the United States in the future. In this society books are burned by “firemen” (Bradbury 6). The thing that really stands out about this book is everyone’s addiction for technology, it shows that we as a society may be heading in the same direction. Author Ray Bradbury uses the book as a warning to future generations about this same problem. The dangers of technology shown in Fahrenheit 451 show us that if we are not careful then we may turn into a society like in Fahrenheit 451. Fahrenheit 451 and The Declaration of Independence have many similarities. Both of these show an over-controlling government and make the reader think about their government today and whether or not it has become over-controlling. In Fahrenheit 451 Beatty, the captain of the firemen, is an example of an over-controlling government and burns down people’s houses that have books in them. One example of this is “I want you to do this job all by...

Words: 676 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Do people really understand their actions if they have been censored their whole life? The answer is no. How can people understand what they are doing wrong if they are never taught what was right. The answer is they don’t understand right from wrong if they have been constantly censored either by the government or just in general. Censorship has negative effects on both an individual and society. Government censorship has a negative effect on the youth in society. An example of censorship affecting an individual and society is in part one of Fahrenheit 451, Clarisse says “I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other.” (Bradbury 30). Clarisse is scared of children her age, she is scared to socialize and do things with them because they go around killing each other for fun. They simply don’t understand what they are really doing due to their government censoring them from anything and everything. “The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual's communication with the outside...

Words: 723 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the teenagers described by Clarisse in the novel are similar to the teenagers in today’s society because of the meaningless conversations that teenagers have, the violence that teenagers face, and the actions that they commit after school hours. At the beginning of the novel, Clarisse states the fact that teenagers in her society have meaningless conversations with each other and how they all repeat what the others are saying. She observes that they never talk about things that have a deeper and more symbolic meaning. This can be seen in our society today because the conversations that teenagers have today center around insignificant topics like fashion and school gossip. This shows the fact that the...

Words: 511 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Dystopian world’s are interesting since they create a world parallel to our own to attack some part of society indirectly. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows us how people’s hunger for happiness can completely turn our world over so that our values no longer exist, leaving only our selfish need of technology. Another author, Jack London, conveys through his book the social injustice of their society on the working class because of the money hungry upper class that takes place in the past. Then there’s Robocop that takes place in the present of the past, if that makes sence, and it shows how corrupt the government is, as well as… Fahrenheit 451: A society is made up of people living together in a circle. However, that sense of community is non-existent in Montag’s world....

Words: 1049 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...One of the many subjects in the novel Fahrenheit 451, By Ray Bradbury is violence. Violence can lead to many things that people regret later on. In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury addresses the subject of violence, suggesting that when people get upset, they sometimes have the tendency to get violent. People also have the tendency to lash out at other people. The first sign of violence in Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is when Montag is finished burning his house down after Mildred pulls the alarm and the fire department bring Montag to burn down his house after the crew finds out he has been keeping books in the house. Beatty got done beating Montag and pulls out the silver bullet from Montag's ear. "Hand it over Guy, said Beatty with a fixed smile, and then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping sprawling gibbering mannikin, no longer human, or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid flame on him". (Bradbury, pg. 119). This evidence supports that when people get upset, they have the tendency to do things they regret later on....

Words: 509 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Prompt: Can altering behavior in order to fit in with a group be harmful? Many at times individuals may find themselves at crossroads when deciding whether to fit in or to stick out. To change and adapt one’s beliefs in order to become accepted can lead to devastating consequences. In Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist, Guy Montag, who lives in a dystopian society on the verge of nuclear war, has been a fireman his whole life. Because the government has banned the existence of books, his job as a fireman is to set ablaze fire-proof homes that contained these illegal objects. Guy, not knowing exactly why, snatches a book from every house he sets on fire and hides it in his home’s air ventilation shaft. Although he doesn’t...

Words: 397 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...1.72 billion. That is the number of people that are affected by censorship on any given day. The book Fahrenheit 451 is about a fireman named Guy Montag who burns books, which are illegal to own, he goes through lots of self-reflection and evaluates his life and the censored world that he is living in. People in the 1950s thought that this censorship world in Fahrenheit 451 was unrealistic but it was actually foreshadowing the future as seen in North Korea’s censorship of the media, social interactions, and outside communications. The government censors all the media in both Fahrenheit 451 and in North Korea. In Fahrenheit 451 the government makes the citizens watch TV walls to brainwash their minds. Montag was talking to his wife Mildred: "Will you turn the parlour off?" he asked. "That's my family" (Bradbury, 46)....

Words: 953 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Fahrenheit 451 Research Paper

...Fahrenheit 451 is a vastly popular work of social criticism by Ray Bradbury. One could say it is a greatly dramatized version of our own world. The book focuses on the supression of the public mind. In the book, a society is “protected” from it’s history, to the extent of burning every single piece of writing there is. Consequently, the lives of the people in this society are consumed by technology. Guy Montag is a “firefighter”, which in this world is a person who is in charge of burning all the books. Montag lives in a place where history is destroyed by kerosene and government brainwashing, ergo he is one of the many people that is not only okay with this, but encourages it. One day he meets a girl named Clarisse McClellan. Bradbury clearly...

Words: 313 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Ray Bradbury Research Paper

...Ray Bradbury Research Paper The short novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury published in 1953 is a story that revolves around the near future where books and literature and banned and burned. Many aspects of this book where heavily influenced by events that happened in Ray’s life when he was a child and throughout his adulthood. The location of Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an urban American city, no specific name or location given, surrounded by suburban houses in the outskirts of the city. Ray had been living in southern California near Santa Ana around the time had begun writing Fahrenheit 451. It was around 1940 “…Ray wrote what he would later call ‘five ladyfinger firecracker’ which led to the ‘explosion’ of Fahrenheit 451.” (Weller 199) The story takes place in the 20th century with no specific year given where two nuclear wars had taken place since 1990. Ray was inspired by the events taking place at the time such as the rise of Nazi Germany, McCarthyism and the “witch hunt set out by the House Un-American Activities Committee in Hollywood in 1947…” (Weller 199) In addition to the setting, a few, but not all of the characters from Fahrenheit were influenced by certain events from Ray’s life. On a windy autumn night in Los Angeles, Ray had been out on a walk with a friend of his, when “A police car wheeled up beside them. The officer stepped out and approached the two men. He asked what they were doing” (Weller 199) in which Ray responded, “Putting one foot in front...

Words: 1052 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Technology and How It Helps People Read Better

...humanity, if they are negative people need to know how to prevent them; and if positive, then how to use them more for humanity’s benefit. While National Endowment for the Arts argues that people are reading full works less in their free time, and Nicholas Carr argues that the internet is making people lose the ability to read long articles, the effects of technology on reading are mostly positive because the ease of reading laterally is more accessible, helps struggling readers to learn, and promotes people to read more on the internet. To begin, Mathew Kirschenbaum argues “that reading is being both reimagined and re-engineered” (para 2). In his article “Reading is Changing” he critic’s points of a NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) research report. One of the points he argues against is that reading is only useful if it is comprehensive. He explains that well known people in the past were depicted with many books about them. If reading one book at a time is the correct way, then why is reading laterally (reading many sources at once) shown to be the...

Words: 2432 - Pages: 10