Bradbury’s Warning
Fahrenheit 451 is a
fictional novel that was written in 1953 by Ray Bradbury. This book used irony in relation to the real
world. Everything that Bradbury said in
the book about the futuristic world having televisions the size of walls and
radio sets on their ears the size of seashells is real in our age of time with
flat screens and ear buds. Bradbury said
he wanted to put this book in homes so that they would avoid these inventions
but they happened anyway.
The main character in this
book is Guy Montag. Montag is a
fireman. In his futuristic world rather
than put out fires, firemen would set books on fire. This world believed that books were racist
and inappropriate. As a solution, they
decided to burn all of the books. If
anyone had books in their house, firemen would be called to the house to burn
the books. If a person would have books
in their house, they would be burned alive if they don’t want to leave their
house.
Montag meets a young woman
named Clarisse McCellan. Montag is
surprised by her love for nature and people.
Soon after strange events start happening to Montag. First, his wife tries to kill herself by
swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills.
Then, he is called to a house to burn down books. The woman that lives there gets burned alive
so that she could be with her books.
Finally, Clarisse is killed by a speeding car. Almost all cars drive very fast. Montag
starts to express his hatred for his world.
He tries to find a solution for his world in a stash of books he had
hidden. The police never find the driver
of the car that killed Clarisse. The
police aren’t that big on finding criminals in his world.
Montag doesn’t show up to
work the next day. His boss, Beatty,
pays him a visit at his home. He
explains that most firemen go through this stage. Beatty knows a lot about books which makes me
think why he would ever become a fireman since he loves books. Montag is given
24 hours to see if his books have anything that will help him. Montag seeks help from his wife but she would
rather watch the parlor walls. That is very realistic. Now a days, more people would watch
television than read. He remembers a man
named Faber. Faber was a former English
professor who retired once books were banned.
He agrees to help Montag. He
gives Montag the green bullet. The green
bullet is an earpiece that allows them to talk to each other secretly. The green bullet sounds like a Bluetooth.
After this moment, Humanity is forever changed.
Ray Bradbury gave us a
warning back in 1954 that if we keep inventing new things and forgetting about
previous things, it will come back and haunt us. The message he is attempting to spread is
that if you outlaw something as common as books, then society gets turned
flipped upside down. It is ridiculous to
not believe his theory. After all, he was right about the green hornet and the
parlor walls. I think I see someone
every day with a Bluetooth in their ear. It is such a common sight. A Parlor wall is just as common as Bluetooth. Every day when I come home from school, I sit
and start watching the parlor wall. I
think there isn’t a single person that doesn’t use a parlor wall every
day. Now I’m not saying stop watching
television all together. I’m just saying we shouldn’t commit our lives to
televisions and always having something in our ears. We should always read books because if we
stop, then we will all receive the same fate as humanity did in Fahrenheit
451.
No comments:
Post a Comment