Essay
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Title: In the course of the novel, Montag undergoes some major changes in his understanding and in how he conducts his life. In an essay analyze and discuss the changes in Montag’s awareness about himself and about the world he lives in and the corresponding changes in his behaviors as a result of his increased awareness.
Ray Bradbury's book "451 degrees Fahrenheit" shows the full value of books. It is one of the best works of literature that I have ever read. People, read while there is an opportunity. It's worth reading it, take my word for it!
The main idea boils down to moral regress, I would even say, the degradation of society, condemnation of dissent, the lack of moral freedom, the right of one's opinion. The problems described in the work are actual nowadays. Yes, in our time we do not burn books. But people forget about them, people plunge down to another world, switching on music in headphones, driving a car and the worst thing is not thinking about that.
They live without thinking about spirituality, something innermost, the world around them, people have mediocre thoughts, they live one day. It's also scary that people don’t denounce others like everyone else. The law is allowed to have its own opinion, but the secret law of society condemns it.
The author shows a totalitarian system dominated by consumer thinking, and mass culture almost completely replaced books that make you think. Moreover, the government helps to destroy literary works.People in the novel have lost touch with each other, with nature, with the intellectual heritage of mankind. People rush out to work or back without ever talking about what they think or feel, talking only about the pointless and empty, admire only material values.
At home they surround themselves with interactive television, they squander their free time watching TV, endless and stupid TV shows. From this way of life people gradually become stale, secluded, stop to love each other, do not have children . At first glance, the «prosperous» state is on the point of collapse and a total destructive war, which is still destined to begin the curtain of the work.
But there are a handful of "other" (dissenters) who have not accepted the rules of the game and are hiding from the authorities, continuing to remain themselves. Ray Bradbury displays that any person can change, the most important is only a desire. Guy Montag, the protagonist of the book, is a living example of this: from an intact cog in the system, he turns into a full-fledged person, and an amazing combination of circumstances facilitates to it.
Guy Montag is a simple firefighter, living an ordinary life and not particularly thinking about her meaning. He burns books because it is his work. It is a special pleasure for him to see things eaten, to see things blackened, to see how venomous blaze devours books transforming them into ash. At that moment he feels that he can control fierce fire. But everything diverges when he met a peculiar girl Clarisse.
Her whole nature is imbued with tireless curiosity to life and what is occurring around. She loves walking, thinking about life, enjoying the beauty of nature and she is able to think independently. She ponders his questions, figures out how best to answer them.She asks him whether he has ever read books,but he just has fun at her expense.Then she wonders if it was true that the firemen put out fires and did not kindle them.Montag tries to convince Clarissa that the houses were always fireproof.
However, Clarisse affirmed that there was time when the houses were burned by themselves, from some kind of carelessness. And then firemen were needed to extinguish the fire.She easily changes the subject and each her question discourages Montag and makes him think about it. Clarissa easily notices what many people do not see. In my opinion, this is clearly demonstrated by an example when she asks whether he paid attention, when rocket cars rushed along boulevards.
She says that those who ride them, just do not know what grass or flowers are. They never see them otherwise than at great speed. She continues: «Show them a green spot, and they will say: yeah, it's grass! Show pink - they will say: well, it's a rosary! White spots are at home; brown ones are cows. Once my uncle tried to ride on the highway at a speed of no more than forty miles an hour.
He was arrested and put in prison for two days. Funny, is not it? And it is sad. » Her thoughts seem for Montag insane.
She asks a simple question: Is he happy? I think that it was the beginning of changes in the consciousness of Montag. He understands that he is unhappy! He says it to himself, he recognizes it. He wore his luck like a mask, but the girl took her away and ran across the lawn, and it was impossible to knock at her door and ask her to give him a mask back.
The most shocking was the disappearance of Clarissa and then her death. At first Montag does not even understand how one day differs from the other. And before he realizes what he is missing, vague stirrings capture his heart. Something happened, some order was broken, to which he was accustomed.
It is impossible not to mention that many were muddled when Montag remembered the case of a madman whose books were burned and he was sent to the asylum.Montag tries to imagine what would have been if the firemen had begun to burn our homes and our books.His behavior arouses suspicion.Others assume that he keeps books.Although he denies everything.However, he does not hesitate to ask one of the most essential question: Did the firemen not extinguish the fires then, instead of kindling them?
At this moment he still does not understand whether it is curiosity or whether his hands are guilty. Also he is flabbergasted by a woman in whom there is no sense of cowardice. She does not want to leave her house. She is so devoted to her innermost books.
The next push to the changes in his mind is a conversation with his wife Mildred.He tells how he has burned a thousand books and a woman.Montag begins to doubt in the choice of his work. But it is not just the death of this woman, he is thinking about how much kerosene he used up in those ten years. And he is thinking about books. And for the first time he realizes that behind each of them there is a person.
His wife finds his stolen books. And he pleads his wife to help them understand why it all happens, because he does not even know where to begin. He thinks that there is anything sensible in these books, even a little bit of reason among the chaos, maybe we can pass it on to others.
One of the considerable heroes in the novel is Beatty. He tried to influence Montag with his eloquent words. Beatty tells Montag about the history of the firefighters, about how gradually the content of books is decreasing, as there are more picture books, more films and less food for reflection and then the books completely are distorted turning into comics, later fade away.
He also cites an example of Clarisse who, unlike many, is not interested in how something is being done, but why and for what.
In search of like-minded people, Montag finds Faber, a professor, whom firefighters have been watching for a long time. Faber tells Montag about significance of books: «It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books. <…>Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all.
The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. » But there is a question: Why people hate and fear books? He answered himself: «They show the pores in the face of life. » Faber explains Montag that everything in this world tries to subjugate a person, to manipulate by him, that TV shows tell people what a man should think.
Montag reads books, they open the world to him, he understands the words of Faber: «The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. » «But the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. »The way of Guy is a way of overcoming the standard of thinking and turning into a soulless machine.He begins to understand that a real intellectual and spiritual catastrophe has taken place in society.
Montag is not afraid now neither of the Mechanical Hound, nor of Beatty, nor of all the techniques that haunt him around the city, because he has is the most valuable perpetual book - the Bible. Having destroyed his dead house, the hero heads for with fugitives who keep in their memory: poems, novels, novels. Montag and these people leave this city - the city of the dead.
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