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Fahrenheit 451 Essay
The book Fahrenheit 451 is about a guy who burns books and is trapped in a horrible socirty. My essay depicts what is acually going on to show how escaping the same dily norms can be beneficial to us.
Chapter 1: Negatives of Daily Norms The Negatives of Daily Norms
Imagine being surrounded, every day, by the artificial truth and by the bland life of being trapped inside a false world that consumes your identity and opportunity. It’s like taking the wrong turn onto a one way road, there's no going back. Today, we have the option to choose the direction we go in life, whether we conceal ourselves from the world or we go out and test our limits. Fahrenheit 451 is about Montag a firefighter, the main character, who discovers the other side of society and tries to cure his wife from her sickness and isolated life. The fake society they live in is taking away from their meaning of life, and while all the books are being diminished, how can they learn the simple life lessons that we would be nothing without. Montag continuously discovers more and more to all that they have been missing out on. Throughout the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury expresses, through his theme of censorship, and many devices of imagery and similes, how after perpetual diversions from society, isolationism can be overcome to reveal the disadvantages of living through the same daily norms.
In deeper meaning, Bradbury’s imagery shows if you yearn for something enough and get passed the obstacle that stands in your way, you can now see what has been blinding you the whole time. When you are trying something for your first time and you can’t get your goal even if you work hard, there is always that time where you finally
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understand. As soon as you understand your mistakes, you see what the problem was the whole time. This is why when you are being isolated from the truth, you can only see what your obstacle was after you overcome your walls and break past the deception. Millie was a great representation of this towards the end of the story. Throughout the book, Bradbury uses a wide range of imagery to show these moments of finally understanding what was holding the characters back. The text reads
...he saw or felt the walls go dark in Millie’s face, heard her screaming, because in the millionth part of time left, she saw her own face reflected there, in a mirror instead of a crystal ball, and it was such a wildly empty face, all by itself in the room, touching nothing, starved and eating itself, that at last she recognized it as her own and looked quickly up at the ceiling… (Bradbury 159-160).
Here, the author’s imagery explodes this moment into showing the beginning of Millie’s realization. She may have not been able to experience society after her understanding, but for the split second as she was scared out of her normal surroundings, she began to see for the very first time herself and her empty face. This uncovers how only after she is set free, she can now see that the television and bland walls surrounding her are what kept Millie from true society. Maybe there could be many things that fall under that category of deception. Montag, Millie’s husband, had experienced this much sooner than herself. He was constantly burning books every day, and overtime he became more and more curious. Soon enough, he brought books back to his home even though he wasn’t supposed to. It was against the law in their society. The government just saw
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the novels as lies contradicting other lies. This is why it was so clear to Montag that he needed to read them for himself. If you were constantly pondering about the unknown, and got the chance to witness the truth, would you break the law? Montag did, just to finally know if they were lying all along. The author added parts into the story where Montag is questioning his happiness which may be the divide between the two societies. The book states ““Are you happy?” she said.
“Am I what? he cried. But she was gone--running into the moonlight. Her front door shut gently.
“Happy! Of all the nonsense”” (Bradbury 10). This passage of dialogue is when Clarisse makes Montag question himself to see if he really was happy. I most certainly believe the author here was trying to have Montag reach the other side of the false society by overcoming his urge for happiness. That was his obstacle, happiness. He knew that the only thing that would make him happy was to stop living in this horrible society. People should never give up on who they want to become or how they want to live because it’s possible for everyone. When you complete your goals, just like when you overcome your isolation from life, you feel so accomplished. But most importantly you see what mistakes you were making the whole time and you can see why living a life of daily norms is not beneficial.
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To add on to that, some people can be blinded from their obstacle in life, which in the end, makes the realization of your mistakes much more extravagant, which can be deeply expressed through dialogue. Sometimes the solution may not come right away
as shown through the book. In Fahrenheit 451, Millie was “blinded” from the true society by all the false information. She kept telling herself that books meant nothing, books aren't people, I can’t talk to books what’s the point? Montag, trying to help Millie, kept trying to get her out of her comfort zone by making her read a book. This didn’t work at all because she was so sucked into the false reality already. Her stubborn attitude is shown through the book when it says “Mildred kicked at a book. “Books aren’t people. You read and I look all around, but there isn’t anybody!”” (Bradbury 73). Obviously, Millie is very upset with Montag because she doesn’t understand the meaning of the books, and it is clearly represented through the dialogue. The government has been rotting her brain her entire life and she can’t seem to see beyond her one belief. The censorship the author includes, with the government taking away their right to books, obliterated all the peoples thoughts are tricked them into thinking the ban on books was good. This all connects to making her moment of her realization at the end of the book much more meaningful. When she saw her empty face in the mirror for that slow moment, that is when the author proves to us, you can only see where you have been going wrong after you overcome your obstacle. This was very different to Montag’s realization because he talked to one of his friends about it, Beatty. Beatty had also read the books just like Montag. This only made Montag want to preach his experiences to Mildred. He found
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his happiness which got him here now she must find hers. He shows how much he cares by saying this ““Does your ‘family’ love you, love you very much, love you with all
their heart and soul, Millie?”” (Bradbury 77). Here, Montag is referring to Millie’s fake family in the parlor on the television. He is trying to prove how it’s all fake and how she
is being isolated from the truth. All of these attempts to save Millie help lead up to her big understanding when she is near death It was too late. It only goes to show how living through daily norms can hurt you, but you can only notice after outgrowing your isolationism from the truth.
As a final point, Bradbury expresses through censorship and imagery, how after much deception from the truth, isolationism can be conquered to show all the negative affects living in the daily norm life can have. Change can be good, especially when you alter your lifestyle from boring and repetitive, to exciting and entertaining. We might not always have a choice, but when the right one is made, we can forever see what we were excluded from.
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The great book I read definitely influenced this peice.