fahrenheit 451 Essay examples

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Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury in 1953 tells the story of a fireman, Guy Montag. In the beginning, he is a loyal servant of a consumerist society that was encumbered by heavy censorship and a pending war. After a sequence of events, he seeks ways to break free of it. Bradbury shows how horrible a society can become when it denies the necessities of imagination and true communication. Montag being a fireman in Bradbury’s novel, however, does not mean extinguishing burning materials, but rather setting things on fire. Mostly, this relates to books which are prohibited in Montag’s America. As described by Bradbury, fireman which burn books and sometimes their owners as well. Montag never questions the norms adopted by the society in which he lives; he simply does his job. Montag develops a friendship with his 17 year old neighbor, Clarisse McClellan, whose is the opposite of Guy and makes him examine his life. Soon, he realizes he is unhappy and no longer loves his wife, Millie. Meanwhile, millie is unwilling to deal with reality and instead chooses to immerse herself in television, seashell radio, and an addiction to tranquilizers. Montag wonders why books are perceived to be so dangerous and why some people are so loyal to them. What power lies in books? When Montag goes into his bedroom, he sees his wife Mildred lying unconscious in bed with her eyes wide open. She had swallowed too many sleeping pills, though the story is not clear whether it was on purpose or an accident. During recent years, Montag and Mildred have not been too close, each of them were simply living their own lives. Mildred is completely immersed in sitcoms, which are broadcasted through special “parlor walls” that are actually three TV-screens that substitute for normal walls. Montag simply goes to work, returns home, and then falls asleep. Despite their marriage having become fiction a long time ago, Montag is still worried about his wife and calls for an ambulance. Bradbury emphasizes that in this world, incidents like this overdose have become so regular that a special machine for rapid blood transfusions has been invented. Handymen, not doctors, equipped with these machines come quickly do their job, and leave. Mildred is saved, but the next morning, when Montag asks her why she took so many pills, she denies that she could perform an act deemed as suicidal. She suggests that perhaps she had had too much to drink at a party last night. Further communication with Clarisse gradually changes Montag’s outlook. He starts noticing aspects of life that he never noticed before, and begins to do simple but spontaneous actions like tasting the rain and laughing. Clarisse tells him about herself and about her visits to a psychiatrist. Bradbury manages to show in a couple of brief words how acts that are perceived as normal by the reader are misperceived as abnormal in Montag’s world of absolute consumerism and shallow entertainment. “The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies,” Clarisse says to Montag (Bradbury 34). When she disappears, her whereabouts are unknown to him for a period of time. Events start to change even faster when Montag’s fire brigade goes on a call to burn a house where lots of books are being stored. During the search, Montag unexpectedly finds a book and hides it. He hears a noise and goes to see what it is about. An old lady, living in this house, refuses to abandon it. When the firemen threaten to burn down the place, Montag is the only one who asks her to leave. He even tries to take her from the residence, but she only thanks him, stands in a middle of a kitchen doused with kerosene, and strikes a match. At home, Montag is shocked to find out from Mildred that Clarisse is dead: she has been run down by a speeding car a couple of days ago. After the accident, Clarisse’s family moved. The next day, Montag feels sick. He cannot even make
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Fahrenheit 451

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