Narrative: Guy Montag is a fireman, however, in
this world firemen start fires, not to
put them out. His job is the incineration of all books regardless of what
materials they contain and Montag loves his job. He loved his job until he
began to indulge in the forbidden pleasure of books. He soon finds himself at
war with society and his role in it.
Bradbury has done a superb job in effectively
crafting his dystopian
society by showing how it is maintained and the illusions used by those in power
to keep the status quo. For example, during elections there are two parties,
similar to the way the duel party system in the United States works. However,
the candidate who is in favor of change is always obese, rude, sloppy and
during the debate was picking his nose on national television. Meanwhile the
conservative candidate was always a smooth talking lady killer who was polite,
kind, and immaculately dressed. On paper there were elections, but they were so
horrendously rigged that there was only the illusion of choice, even if they
fixed the ballots no one would be surprised the liberal candidate lost. Next is
the soul crushing sense of despair amplified by the denizens of the city.
Montag’s wife tries to commit suicide via sleeping pills and her only passion
in life is the “parlor TVs” that surround you while you watch to be part of the
story, living a false life while you wallow in your own. Along with the
teenagers who has such little regard for life they try to deliberately strike
you with their cars. The very skies themselves drone with the mechanical
brouhaha of bombers soring overhead in part of a looming war.
The next most crucial part of the
society was the ban on books. Books could contain seditious material or simple
encouraged free thought. All books regardless of material, format or detail was
torched by the firemen. The book was written during the 1950’s in which “Book barbecues”
were surprisingly common place. Bradbury, as an author found this rather
upsetting and disturbing. He wrote this work to advocate free thinking and to
announced the dangers of censoring books or other works of media.
Montag who is at the helm of the
societies effective censorship adored his job. Many dystopian works often have
people on the fringes of society “looking in wards” while Montag was in the
heart of it all, reveling in the pyromaniac work. It was only until he met Clarisse,
a seventeen-year-old girl who asked “why” instead of “how” did he start to
think on the causes of “why”. After this peculiar girl, she is suddenly
involved in a car accident less than a week later, which causes him to question “why" and even reads one of the books he is meant to burn in hopes of finding
a solution to societies’ problems and his own. Yet, the most interesting part accurse
when his boss Captain Beatty comes to Montag’s home and explain how much
of an avid reader he once was. Beatty even had a dream where he and Montag did
battle by quoting books. But soon
enough he grew to detest books due to their unpleasant content, facts that
contradicts the government’s ideas, and opinions he did not agree with. So he chooses to silence their voices in a torrent of fire. This scene
shows that all firemen, the ones who do the censoring, all read books at one
point in their lives, have come to the concussion that burning is the correct
path. This effectively shows how the censoring is protected and continues the
cycle of incineration. In our modern society, when someone who writes or speaks an opinion that
does not agree with your own, we often have a discussion or write review works
on them, no burn their works and silence their voice.
We should all take a page of warning
from this work of art due to the growing militarism of our fellow students in
our country. College is a place of learning first and foremost. However, with
the growing incidents of silencing your classmate’s opinion due to not agreeing
with them, the banning of books that have racial undertones, (et Mark Twain) or
silencing a guest speaker who is too conservative. If you disagree with
someone, get into an argument, just do not outright silence him like a
proto-fascist. In short, in an age of growing censorship on college campuses
and the rise of fascist type scare tactics used to push ideas, Bradbury’s novel
shines like a beacon of fire in the darkness and serves as warning to the
dangers of silencing all other opinions and ideals.
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