Fahrenheit 451

If they give you ruled paper, write the other way

So I haven't read this book since 9th Grade. I forgot how much I enjoyed it. Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1953 I believe. Yet, as the New York Times reported "Frightening in its implications, Mr. Bradury's account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating."

Here are a few parallels that I can come up with.

-people are more shallow, expressionless. They are kept so busy with mindless or tedious tasks they have to time to sit and really think or have a real conversation. They talk without really saying anything.

"People don't talk about anything"

"oh, they must!"

"NO, not anything. They name a lot cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! but they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the caves they have the joke boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and down, but it's only color and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. that's all there is now. . . A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people."

"We must all be alike. Not everyone is born free and equal as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man, the image of the other; then all are happy. . . What do we want in this country above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard all it all your life? I want to be happy, people say, well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titilation? and you must admit our culture provides plenty of these. . . . "Colored People don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs?

The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book."

"Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non combustible data, chock so full of "facts" that they feel stuffed, but absolutely brilliant with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll bee happy, because facts of that sort don't change.

A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink Deep or taste not the Pierian Spring. There, shallow draughts intoxicate the brain. And drinking largely sobers us again.

Next, the people in this book watch t.v. on they're "parlor walls". There t.v.s are so humongous that they take up the space and replace an actual wall. This just reminds me painfully of our big flat screen plasma t.v's.

" If you're not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can't think of anything else but the danger, then you're playing some game, or sitting in some room where you can't argue with the four wall television. Why? the television is real. It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. IT rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions you mind hasn't time to protest.

Throughout the book, there are various ear insects and ear seashells used by different characters. Montag's wife uses her "shells" to listen to the radio, news, music. This is just like our attachment to our earphones and earbuds as we listen to our Ipods. These ear seashells are also used to communicate back and forth like walkie talkies. You can use them for 2 way communication, to talk and to listen. Because they are worn in the ear, it reminds of all the people I see that have their blue tooths permanently attached to their faces.

Now, I know a lot of this applies to me and I am not perfect but I think this is something to think about.

I SAW THE WAY THINGS WERE GOING, A LONG TIME BACK. I SAID NOTHING. I'M ONE OF THE INNOCENTS WHO COULD HAVE SPOKEN UP AND OUT WHEN NO ONE WOULD LISTEN TO THE GUILTY. I DID NOT SPEAK, AND THUS BECAME GUILTY MYSELF.