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
In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury emphasizes a world in which books are of little importance and forbidden. Firemen like Montag, burn books without knowing the reasoning behind it. In Bradbury's novel, education's emphasis on technology leads to a culture where people understand how things are done but never bother to wonder why things are done. Such an education discourages people from developing their creative abilities, and as the narrative points out several times, those who cannot build destroy. The result is a society where fanatical, destructive behavior, such as the firemen's book-burning, flourishes.
Imagine a hopeless society where everyone was brainwashed with meaningless technology, books were strictly forbidden, and the true meaning of life was long forgotten. For Montag, that is society was very real. The central idea of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, conveyed by the themes of the sections — awakening, seeking knowledge and truth, and rebirth— is that independent thought can help to overcome great obstacles, which is what leads Montag to step away from the wasteland of modern society to where he truly wanted to be. The first section, “The Hearth and the Salamander”, is where Montag begins to break away from being like an average person in society. The hearth has long been a comforting symbol of home.
Persuasive/Argumentative A&P Throughout the short story of “A&P”, the main character Sammy makes a few decisions that reflect on him as a person. Sammy is a grocery clerks man who works the cash register at the store called the A&P. Physical attraction, going about quitting his job, and lack of responsibility shows just who he is. One might say he is nothing more than a foolish immature young man. To begin, the way Sammy describes the girls at the “A&P” shows just how immature he is. “With the straps pushed off, there was nothing between the top of the suit and the top of her head except just her, this clean bare plane of the top of her chest down from the shoulder bones like a dented sheet of metal tilted in the light” (540).
He describes the town as remote and unaffected, desolate and boring, continually mentioning the old, peeling paint and "irrelevant signs" that dot the landscape. Capote also gives the village a feeling of laziness in his writing, describing it as an "aimless congregation of buildings" and a "haphazard hamlet." He obviously feels that the town lacks liveliness, that it is bland and unchanging, simple and average. Almost looking down on the village and its inhabitants, the author characterizes the people in broad categories and focuses on their outward appearances and superficial similarities instead of delving more deeply into their abilities or livelihoods. This reveals that he views the people and their surroundings as simple and basic.
Using Formalism to interpret cannot be effective because the readers need to understand the background information. Without the background, the story becomes comparable to a pound cake with no toppings, bland and uninviting. Formalism ignores the cultural context, the author intentions, and how the story affects the reader personally. Formalism by definition ignores specifics such as what the author’s intentions were in the story. Fast’s intentions turn out to be an attempt to describe human nature.
Skrzynecki use the word “darkness” to describe the inside of the museum which symbolises his sadness. The tone of sadness emphasises how he doesn’t want to be there, he doesn’t have any connection with the museum and Australian culture. Skrzynecki used different colours such as “grey”, “yellow and brown” to create a dull and cold image which create a distance between the museum and him. Also the dull atmosphere further reflects Skrzynecki’s negative feeling and makes him harder to connect with Australian culture. “TO remind of pass/ Which isn’t mine.” Indicates where Skrzynecki had tried to fit in with the museum but the tone of sadness and depression show that he had failed to connect with the new culture and country.
Henry Thoreau visualized a perfect government, free of harm, fault, and malfunction. Of course, this government he spoke of was purely off his needs, failing to review or analyze the desires of his fellow citizens, but to step forward and state what they want from government, which in Thoreau’s view of point is, having “as little government as possible.” In condemning the reader, Thoreau obtained the perfect reactions he wanted for an effective form of protest for a civil disobedience against the government. Raised eyebrows, negative feedback, retorting, and debates/arguments were the resulting factors. Thoreau begins his writing by arguing that government rarely proves itself useful and that it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoint. “The authority of government is still an impure one, which I also believe that government is best which governs not all.” This statement suggests Thoreau recognizes that the government is not liable to revolutionize.
This is supported by the semantic contrast between “offensive, provocative” and “a gesture, a token”. The positive connotations of a “hello day” greatly outweigh the alternative and therefore the author is persuading the reader to be on his side. Although there are parallels between the beginnings of stanza 1 and 2, there is also a strong contrast. The juxtaposition of “their town” and “our village” emphasizes the individualized nature of the world. In “our village”, it would seem odd if a man did not greet his neighbor.
Aastha Mehta Interpretation of Culture Professor Heo September 27, 2009 Reflection Paper Horace Miner does a good job of stepping outside his own culture and avoiding the many blunders any insider to a culture is prone to when he writes this satire. He sees the Nacirema culture, his own culture, from an outsider's perspective using the culture's own standards, as he understands them, to describe their beliefs and practices. He avoids oversimplification and triteness by going to great pains to describe practices once common to us, in new and strange ways. This article indeed helps us to see ourselves as others might see us. Miner, however, does not do as well in avoiding ethnocentrism in this article.