##ity And Conformity In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Before this understanding, Montag is ‘happy’ and feels that nothing is wrong with his life. He loves his job. He is just like everyone else. Blank and empty inside, Montag wears a mask of happiness on the outside. In the very beginning, he loves to burn books. Afterall, he is a fireman, whose job is to burn the horrible books. For him “it was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things blackened and changed” (1). Montag was just another person brainwashed by television and the lies of government. Montag would have never suspected that Clarisse is the person who takes off his blindfold. After she asks Montag if he is happy, he starts to notice the world. At first, he assures himself that he is happy. When he’s home, he realizes “he was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask…” (9). The mask of happiness that the leaders and government force the people to wear has been torn from Montag’s face and he is shocked as he sees the truth for the first time. Clarisse has started the first step in a transformation that will lead Montag on a path towards true

Montag is brainwashed up until the point where he meets Clarisse and then his new curiosity blossoms. Clarisse sparks a new flame in Montag and it makes him question everything he has been doing throughout his life as a fireman.

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 features a fictional and futuristic firefighter named Guy Montag. As a firefighter, Montag does not put out fires. Instead, he starts them in order to burn books and, basically, knowledge to the human race. He does not have any second thoughts about his responsibility until he meets seventeen-year-old Clarisse McClellan. She reveals many wonders of the world to Montag and causes him to rethink what he is doing in burning books. After his talks with her, the society’s obedience to the law that bans knowledge, thinking, and creativity also increasingly distresses him. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows conformity in the futuristic America through schooling, leisure, and fright.

Since the beginning of his firefighter career, Montag has had an inner sense of resistance that only grew after his meetings with Clarisse and other citizens in his society that impacted him. When Montag first met Clarisse, she had readily caused an impact on him. She had asked him a string of questions and told him of occurrences that you would not usually tell. One of her questions had made him realize something about himself rather quickly, “She laughed at this. “Good night!” She started up her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. “Are you happy?” She said. (7). The question confused Montag at first, reassuring himself that, yes, he was indeed happy. Until he thinks it over and over inside his house, “He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as they rue state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.” (9). A simple question from Clarisse had Montag realizing a sad truth about himself- he was not happy. Instead of truly feeling the emotion, he wore it as a mask, covering the dissatisfaction he felt with his life, his love and his job by seemingly contentedness, which was not really there. Another impact Clarisse had had on Montag was longingness. Though

In today’s society, people are using technology for mostly everything; from communication with others, near and far, to studying and reading. Just like in the novel, technology is taking over our lives. In the futuristic dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury set the novel in the 24th century in which people were completely out of touch with each other. The novel was to parallel the downfall of today’s society.

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury the focus was on a society that believed novels were for burning and was against the idea of critical thinking. Throughout the novel there are several incidents that, in today’s standards are considered social criticism. Some of the subjects that are discussed in this novel include; the knowledge of schooling, the conformation of society, the reduction of family values and the way that books are understood. These are all examples of social criticism in the novel Fahrenheit 451. The listed examples above help create the atmosphere for the society.

How are books and television used in Fahrenheit 451 as symbols of freethinking and conformity?

In the first portion of the novel, Guy Montag is introduced as the main character. He burns books without question to assert the happiness amongst the people. Montag does not know what the reference fireman stands for since the government had conditioned a different idea into the people's minds. When Montag goes to sleep he notices he still smiles even when he thinks he isn’t , he forms the conclusion with the help of Clarisse that the thought to think they are happy are all fake. Nonetheless the realization of the to idea of fake happiness foreshadows the following events to where Montag is nowhere near being happy. When Montag meets Clarisse McClellan you instantly realize that Montag isn't the happiest man you could meet. Clarisse is a interesting, extempore teenager, Montag finds her picture of society intriguing and different. Clarisse views everything with detail

Merriam-Webster defines conformity as “behavior that is the same behavior of most other people in the society.” That word will be very significant in the books that will be used in this essay. Those two books are Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Lamb To The Slaughter by Roald Dahl. The similarities between Guy Montag from Fahrenheit 451 and Mary Maloney from Lamb to the Slaughter are indisputable and are worthy of in depth inquiry. Throughout the stories it isn't hard to tell that these characters share many qualities. The main focus will be on how they don't fit into society, the weighted risks that are taken, and spousal betrayal. These connections are so important for full comprehension of both stories, that not digging deeper would be a crime against literature.

In the beginning of the book Montag is just like any other member of his society until he meets his first influence,Clariesse McClellans his seventeen year old neighbor. She’s described as crazy by her uncle and an outsider by her peers. Montag and Clariesse meet when Montag is walking home from work. They get to talking and the first very impactful thing she says to Montag is on page seven at the end of their conversation she asks, “Are you happy?”. Just that alone sent Montag into a spiral of questions and that made him start to question everything because when

Correspondingly, in Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury notably brings out the hybrid character in Montag during his transformation from a conformist to a non-conformist. Assuming his role as a conformist at the initial part of the story, Montag became a hybrid when he started to think, an action that was strictly banned by the Government. However, his pursuit for knowledge and books resulted in the eventual loss of his job, “wife” and “friends”, and himself being hunted down by the authorities. Nevertheless, his depart from the society allowed him to join forces with the “intellectuals” to rebuild and create a more equalitarian society where knowledge could exist, eliminating the initial societal divide between intellectuals and ignorant that caused

“‘Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth’”(John F. Kennedy). In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who burns books, which are illegal. Montag questions society and decided to read, soon becoming a fugitive. Guy Montag’s ideology changes and grows throughout the novel with the help of important events. At first, Montag enjoys burning books, but soon he begins to save the very books he is supposed to burn. Montag then rejects his society completely by reading books and becoming a fugitive.

As the pages are turned, just before the beginning of the first chapter is reached, the reader is welcomed with a quote by Juan Ramon Jimenez which so accurately embodies the very novel it is written in – Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” – and it goes, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”

In the beginning of the book Montag is just like any other member of his society until he meets his first influence,Clariesse McClellans his seventeen year old neighbor. She’s described as crazy by her uncle and an outsider by her peers. Montag and Clariesse meet when Montag is walking home from work. They get to talking and the first very impactful thing she says to Montag is on page seven at the end of their conversation she asks, “Are you happy?”. Just that alone sent Montag into a spiral of questions and that made him start to question everything because when she asked that

Conformity is shown through one of the characters in the book, in this case it would be Mildred. In this part of the book Mildred and Montag are having a conversation with one another when Mildred so happens to say “That was another Mildred, that was a Mildred so deep inside this one”(52). This is important because it shows how we saw one side of Mildred until she decided to show us her other side. This shows conformity because she so happens to think the same way other people do. Earlier in the book when Montag and Mildred are talking about Montag’s job and how him and the rest of the firemen burnt a woman for having books, Mildred says “She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have had books”(51). This quote shows how Mildred conforms because in the book, having books is bad and you could be punished by it. Mildred shows how she believes the same thing everyone else believes about having books is illegal and that those who get punished by it deserve it.