Knowledge vs. Ignorance Sabrina de Sousa Mrs. Hamel English 102 February 2012 Knowledge vs. Ignorance In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the main character Guy Montag has figured out, with the help of others, that in his society the government is doing everything in their power to prevent the people from reading books and gaining ideas, which in the governments eyes, ideas only lead to problems. “It was a pleasure to burn,” (3). Montag kicks off the novel in the beginning by telling us that he is a fireman, and in that society, and his job is to destroy knowledge, by burning books as well as boosting ignorance.
Well Montag take my word for it, [he has] had to read a few in my time, to know what [fireman] was about, and the books say nothing...[he] come[s] away lost,” (Bradbury 66). Beatty tries to keep Montag from reading books, but all that causes is for Montag to go a different direction that Beatty wants. Beatty helps Montag change into a better person without even trying and noticing. In many ways this is good that Beatty is trying to push Montag away from books because it just makes Montag rebel against
Faber is talking to Guy through the ear device and tells him to run, but Guy thinks of the mechanical hound, so instead he gets the grabs the flamethrower that Beatty was handing to him. Guy burns down his house along with the books and gets arrested by Captain Beatty. “The books leapt and danced like roasted birds, their wings ablaze with red and yellow feathers.” – Personification & Simile Scene II: The house is burnt and Captain Beatty tells Guy that Mildred’s friends had also turned in an alarm earlier … he was an idiot for reciting poetry like that. Beatty hits Guy and the green bullet falls out, Beatty picks it up and says he’ll burst Guy’s friend, so Guy still having that flamethrower in his hand he burns Captain Beatty alive and the mechanical hound, too. “Why don't you belch Shakespeare at me, you fumbling snob?
Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 is a futuristic novel where the main character is Montag, a fireman living in a world where firefighters don’t work putting off fires but provoking them. The purpose of the fire is to burn books, because they impede society from being happy. One day he met Clarisse McClellan, the second main character of the book story, a girl who had a different vision of the world; she knew something wasn’t right with the rest of the people hence they thought she was a little crazy somehow. Montag also found her strange, no one had ever asked him so many questions that made him think about something else than his routine life and burning books, she seemed to know so many things. Gradually, with Clarisse’s help, Montag began to
The first part of the novel was given the title “The Hearth and the Salamander” this is the first symbolism used of fire. A hearth symbolizes fire as a sense of warmth and goodness, which shows the positive and influential side of fire as the salamander represents the symbol of the fireman who use fire in a negative way to burn and destroy books. In this first part of the novel fire is symbolized as a powerful force of destruction as Guy Montag wields the power to destroy a strong source of knowledge and
Mildred said, when Montag was reading books, “Beatty, he’ll come in, and burn us and the books!” (Bradbury, 68). By Mildred saying that Beatty would burn his co-worker, and friend, with his wife, over a book, is very inhumane. Although books are illegal, taking a torch to someone is not a fair way to punish a person. Beatty is even more inhumane and cruel when he lights the match, and starts the fire to the woman with all her books. Beatty had no problem with burning the old woman, and her precious books, because he ignited the flame.
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the story revolves around the clash between ignorance and knowledge. Ray presents the question of what makes true happiness. The only two options he provides before us are either complete ignorance or knowledge and learning. Guy Montag, the protagonist of the story, believes that knowledge is the key for happiness and fights against all of society for what he believes is. Guy Montag is a fireman in a futuristic United States of America, who instead of taking out fires for a living, ignites fires upon books.
Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future society where knowledge is considered dangerous and individuality is discouraged. The people are kept complacent with a steady stream of meaningless entertainment. A war is being waged, but no one seems to know why or even whom the enemy is. Books are outlawed because they contain ideas that might cause people to question the status quo. It is the job of the firemen to burn books to prevent the spread of dissension and independent thought.
It is open to whatever human creativity can come up with ("What Is Censorship?"). Guy Montag is a firefighter who lives in a lonely, isolated society where books have been outlawed by a government fearing an independent-thinking public. It is the duty of firefighters to burn any books on sight or
The element of heat comes to its culmination with the fire started by the riot after Radio Raheem is killed by the police. The fire is heat at its maximum; the angry flames burn down Sal's pizzeria. The racial tensions throughout the movie are emphasized by the concept of heat as the characters struggle to deal with the rising temperatures as well as their rising