...A book about burning books if that isn’t ironic then the definition of ironic needs to be checked. In the book, a man’s, named Guy Montag, eyes are opened to view life around him and as it progresses finds different types of fire. The man who thought up and wrote this ironic and classic novel titled Fahrenheit 451 was author Ray Bradbury. And in Ray Bradbury’s novel a symbol, fire, was represented in three different ways. The first representation of fire is that it is used as the solution to every problem. To help support this is a quote from captain Beatty on page 60, ”Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean.” Well before captain Beatty said this he was talking about burning things that make others unhappy which means...
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...Fahrenheit 451: Censorship Imagine living in a world where you could not read or own any books. How would you feel if your house was burned down by someone because books were hidden somewhere between the walls? In the novel, owning books is illegal. A firemen in the novel starts fires rather than putting them out. Many people of the society don't even have an interest in reading books. Those interested will hold a book under their roofs, which can lead to serious risks. Either going to jail after your books and house is burned down or get burned with your books and house. In Fahrenheit 45, Censorship plays an enormous role and can be the most important theme. One of those roles are burning of books and the other is use of technology. One of the most general themes in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 is censorship. Censorship is the suppression of speech or other information that may...
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...of hope. Guy Montag is the protagonist who faces a dilemma in a community that has chosen to burn all of the books. Montag is a fireman who is tasked with burning books as a profession. Montag meets a series of characters who aid him in his journey of preserving the information in the books. In the end, the knowledge is preserved in an unconventional way. In the article by Michelle Dean, titled “Our Young-Adult Dystopia”, she describes the current situation of books being mass produced without much substance. She discusses works that are similar to each other and lack depth....
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...In the book Fahrenheit 451, Montag's wife, Mildred, reports her Husband's books to the fire station. In their world, possession of books is illegal and deserving of a ‘burning’ in which the firemen come to destroy the house of the owner, along with the owner himself. However, in our world, owning books is legal, and actually common. So the question is: was Mildred right to report her law-breaking husband, or should she have let Montag be? According to the world of this book’s readers, owning books is typically encouraged, owing to the benefits a person can reap from reading. If Mildred and Montag had lived in the real world, rather than that of the book, her actions would likely see her end up in a mental facility. On pages 16-17, Mildred wakes up after previously overdosing on sleeping pills, and can't remember what has happened; even after Montag insists that she has done so. Likewise, Mildred spends her time watching and listening to her ‘family’ who are actually just actors on a screen. So, according to the...
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...One of the themes in Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, is censorship. In this novel, it's illegal to own books, Books are evil. Owning a book is believed to cause problems, books have no relevance or meaning. If someone owns a book, then the firemen come to take care of the situation. The government had no role in censoring books, it was all done by citizens.The people allowed the censorship of books os they could live a happier simpler life. If there were books owned by someone the firemen took care of it. A fireman's job isn't to put out fires, but rather to start them. Firemen burn down houses that contain books in them, or the houses of people who own books. The firemen are the enforcers of the censorship laws. Guy Montag, the protagonist...
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...limiting individuality. The setting of the novel itself is in a post-apocalyptic, futuristic United States. In the novel, books contain opinions and ideas that the society simply does not understand. Therefore in order not cause conflict and turmoil among citizens, they began to burn books as said on page 58 by Beatty, Montag’s boss, “‘Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca...there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, official censors, judges, and executors’”. The burning of the books was for the good of the people, to keep them sane with singular ideologies such as obedience and compliance; doing anything that was out of the ordinary in any capacity is looked down upon. This leads to all of the citizens having a common mindset that is easy to control and influence by the government. The restriction of diversity in the material and content of the books made it so that citizens of the society were not able to come to...
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...future. Montag is a fireman in this distorted and twisted society, but oddly in this world firemen are not the people who extinguish the fires, but the people who start them. Fire is one of the main themes in this story, and Bradburry makes sure to incorporate as much as he can. The irony behind fire in this story is that not only does fire viscously incinerate books, which are banned, but by the end of the book it furnaces warmth and hospitality to Montag. The main reason Ray Bradbury incorporates irony in this story, such as the two different uses of fire, is to convey two essential life lessons. Ray Bradbury's outstanding intellect in literary knowledge fabricates the importance of irony in this story, and its relation to this society. The irony of the opposing uses of fire in is that not only does it cause death and despair, but it also gives off warmth and ease. As Montag harbors into the homeless camps among the most infamous literature writers, they come together and start a fire. A fire in which, “...It was not burning, it was warming,” (Bradbury 139). The significance of this moment in...
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...In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the author juxtaposes fire and water to contribute to the story’s overall message due to their impact on Montag’s life. Throughout the story fire and water are repeatedly used to represent purification or rebirth. Although both symbols can represent the same idea, they are presented in drastically different ways. Fire is used to destroy books and knowledge, meanwhile water is used to cleanse Montag of his past life and give him a fresh start. Fire is frequently presented while Montag is with the other firemen because their job is to burn any books that are no longer permitted in their society. One might think that burning books would symbolize destruction, but Bradbury introduces society’s view on fire by...
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...This section of the book “Fahrenheit 451” has the most similarities to the common society today. Guy Montag receives a visit from Captain Beatty discussing the certain point in a fireman's career where he hits the phase of wondering all about the fireman and why his job is what it is. Captain Beatty explains to Guy why firemen burn houses that contain books and why books are not read anymore on a daily basis by the everyday person besides comic books and three-dimensional sex magazines. He tells Guy Montag that keeping the people uneducated and being active in their lives rather than sitting around and talking keeps everyone happy. One quote from Captain Beatty states “Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to...
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...The theme of Fahrenheit 451 is censorship. It doesn't really provide a real reason why books are banned. Instead it really mainly suggests many contributing factors that create the reason why books are banned. These contributing factors can be broken down into two groups. One group where it leads to a lack of interest in reading books and another group in which the factors contribute to make people hostile towards books. The first group includes factors that compete with reading. These factors include television, radio, and many other forms of entertainment. In the way that Bradbury contributes these factors it makes it harder to concentrate. In this book it creates a lifestyle in which it's harder to concentrate. With everything that’s going...
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...! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Jacob Grimes! Rushdie & Rauch v. Storck: Censorship! Salman Rushdie is one of the many opponents of censorship. Born to an Indian family in Britian, his books contain magical realism, historical fiction, and Eastern-Western connections. His works are often controversial, and in 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death. Rushdie tells us that we are living in a censorious age where our voices are being censored in the name of “respect”. This need for “respect” extends beyond its traditional definition, and also means that one must not overtly disagree with what others say or think. Rushdie thinks this censorship will bring an end to the radical disagreements that shape a free society. ! ! Jonathan Rauch is an American journalist who is also an avid proponent of same-sex marriage. He agrees with Rushdie that censorship should be fought because it is being used to censor simple disagreements; not only people are losing face over voicing negative views about blacks, but also for speaking against advantaged groups such as Christians and men. Rauch argues that censorship’s goal of purifying the world is a futile effort. People typically see the world in terms of in-groups and out-groups, so there will always be prejudice. This prejudice is hard to pin down because it may be confused with misinformation. For example, a protestor saying “God Hates Fags” may be expressing a subjective statement...
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...of Clarisse. Clarisse is an intelligent woman and she know that Guy has been burning books. So she starts of the conversation by just saying hello, then she asks him why he likes to burn books. He really doesn’t have an excuse for burning books he just enjoys it, I find this very strange myself but I find this whole section strange. Then after the encounter he had with Clarisse he goes home to his wife and as he walks in the door. he discovers that she has overdosed on a drug, he suddenly calls 911 as any instinct of a fireman would be too. Guy steals a book from a collection he is sent to burn. At the scene of the burning, Guy is shaken when the owner of the books, an older woman, refuses to leave her home. Instead, the woman sets fire to her kerosene soaked house and remains there as it, and she, are destroyed by flames. The woman's dedication to her books makes Guy realize that perhaps the happiness he lacks can be found in books. After the burning, Guy returns home, feeling ill as he relives the woman's horrific death. He begins to realize that although, over the past ten years, he thought he was serving society as a fireman, he was actually purely an instrument of destruction. That night, in a discussion with Millie, Guy learns that his friend Clarisse was killed by a speeding car more than a week earlier. When he hears this, Guy feels even more ill. He falls asleep that night with his stolen book hidden underneath his pillow thinking about what he wants to do. Due to feeling...
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...when the tremendous blast erupted just down the street from where he was. He could see the huge cloud of flames burst through the roof of the bank like, a giant orange fist bursting out from the inside. At the scene, the sounds of the ear-splitting blast, the roar of the people, and shattering glass were all together deafening. Brian sprinted down the street. His footsteps, quick and steady, were repetitive with each smack of his foot against the pavement. “Get out of the way! Move it!” Brian heard an officer shouting as he approached the scene. He had trouble thinking over the blaring sirens and the commands of the officers. “Hurry! Get out of here!” The orders continued to be shouted at the crowd. Emerging from the thick smoke of the burning building was no other than, Detonation, a villain known for his explosive destruction of cities. Detonation, known during his childhood as Stephen Nielson, lost his parents and grew up in an orphanage. One day, when he and his parents returned home from the store, Stephen was reaching for the groceries in the trunk as his parents walked inside. As he was struggling to reach...
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...the novel in many ways and in different times throughout the book. This helps by showing things such as character growth or just setting the mood. In the literal sense, fire is represented by most of the characters being firefighters. Firefights star fires in home to burn books because books are not allowed in the society also they have important knowledge in them and in the society they would like everyone equal. In this example fire symbolizes destruction. The firefighters do not save people or save anything like I originally thought. In truth, the firefighters create only destruction. In a metaphorical sense, fire is a main part of the book because it represents the destruction and the chaos throughout the plot. It represents the idea that any knowledge or power of the people must be destroyed. It also is metaphorical for the fire that is ignited inside Montag when he begins to question the things around him such as his job because the old woman shows how bad his job truly is and began to...
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...Fahrenheit 451 "The problem in our country isn’t with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You do not have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them” (Ray Bradbury.) In the novel by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, it is illegal to possess books. If somehow a fire fighter finds out, you have books in your house. Fire fighters will burn your house and they will show no mercy. In this book, the protagonist Guy Montag, a fire fighter, faces many changes in himself, to do what he thinks is precisely what he needs, to read. One way that Guy Montag changes is with the people surrounding him. One person that changes him is his new neighbor Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse was different from the other kid;...
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