Exploratory Draft for Fahrenheit 451

Hmm.... where to begin?

My proposal: I am interested in writing about the similarities between the society of Fahrenheit 451 and of today, because I want to understand why we dismiss sci-fi for being unrealistic and impossible when it might really reflect on and help us understand our world today. One way to investigate this might be by more deeply exploring some of the similarities that we find within the book itself, such as the characters’ relationship with technology, human interaction, and censorship.

One idea I find particularly fascinating and that I want to explore more is the human interaction that goes on in this book. This seems to encompass–or be a result of–the other ideas of technology and censorship.

I did a text exploration on the scene where Mildred is in their dining room with her ears plugged into her seashells and the toaster has a hand that gives her her toast; Montag than comes in but Mildred, although she acknowledges him with a slight nod, seems to be more interested in her device than Montag. Technology often seems to prevent a lot of quality human interaction.

Seashells. Television. Parlor walls that replace humans because they themselves–the robotic walls–are considered “family.”

Then there’s censorship: If colored people don’t like blablabla, white people don’t like blablabla, burn it, says Beatty. Without this possibility for controversy, there’s peace, Beatty claims.

                        (questions: how does this idea of burning books connect to controversy? Or how do books connect to controversy?)

Well, what do people do? What’s special about people as oppose to robots, or any technological device? People can think. They have ideas.

With interaction comes thinking, with thinking comes ideas, with ideas come controversy, and what Beatty–and the whole societal system itself– argues is that controversy is bad.

So seems the “inventors,” the “creators,” the “game-makers”–or, the government–of this seemingly sci-fi society probably thought to themselves, to stop controversy, we must stop the root of it: human interaction.

So they’ve used technology as a form of censorship to limit human interaction to prevent controversy!

I guess my argument could be that technology is the root of all the problems within the society of Fahrenheit 451, but it needs to be richer.

Wait, I just realized that I’ve discounted the idea of burning books themselves.

Maybe the technology is a cover up for the gap that becomes present without books. People, often unconsciously, love to learn, love to understand, love to observe: this comes through all types of media, books, magazines, tv, movies. A world without any of these information feeders would be quite empty, and I think people would drive themselves mad. But I guess there’s more of a freedom of expression through books and literature and writing. And there’s also a lot of room for interpretation, especially because of the lack of visuals. But with video–tv and movies–maybe the information we receive from that is more concrete, because not only do we get dialogue and sound, but we get to see. There’s definitely something to take into account about trusting and believing what we see. Same for what we hear. So maybe using this type of media makes it easier to persuade and convince people because there’s less room for people to form their own opinions. The government can control what people believe because of this.

Although he doesn’t say it so bluntly, this is what Beatty is implying if you read between the lines. However, he seems to believe that all of this is okay. Having a government that filters the information you receive seems wrong, but Beatty justifies it as being a good thing because it prevents controversy and argument.

So technology is a cover up for so much more than it initially seems.

The argument could be further spun/&proven because Bradbury kindly provides us with characters that are not under this influence, like Clarrise. By seeing the intellectual capacity of her character and the incapacity of others, we start to wonder where this comes from. Clarrise does all the opposite things of most others: instead of watching the tv and the parlor walls, she reads books- instead of listening to seashells, she talks to her uncle. Faber, too; Granger and his group, too. As readers we are more attracted to them because, contrary to what Beatty argues, they seem at peace with themselves and the world, despite the fact that they’re exposed to everything society tries to hide from them.

Our status quo, in sense, could be that according to society (of the book), controversy is bad. This is troubling, though, because it seems like there’s something deeper to this... a question would be, how would a society control controversy?

            {I think I’m going to forget about comparing the F451 society to today’s–maybe I’ll include that in the end of my essay.]

What makes me ask this, though? About controversy in the first place?

Well, when reading the book, I always had a hunch that even Beatty himself might be oblivious to the fact that there is a larger initiative of the society//government than burning books to try to keep people happy. After reading many sci-fi books, it’s always a fishy topic when the rulers always claim, “all we want is for you to be at peace.”

But maybe what they really want is control. They want to be the books themselves.

They’re jealous of books.

AHHH. They realize the power of books.

(who’s they?? gov.?)

So somewhere along the line they’ve acknowledged what a powerful tool books really are.

They’ve figured out what it is that makes books powerful, and then manipulated that to become even more powerful and controlling.

So what it is that makes books powerful? Their abilities to suggest certain claims, but then provoke thinking and new ideas to the readers.

Although the government wants to be able to “suggest certain claims,” they don’t want to “provoke thinking and new ideas.” They don’t want to suggest certain claims, they want to enforce them and make sure everybody believes them.

So while books are strongly looked down upon, they’re also secretly admired.

This seems to be a pattern with a lot of characters and their relationships with books, though. They’re not willing to give books enough credit, because they’re too obsessed with themselves??//?