Conformity And Ignorance In Fahrenheit 451

Do you conform or do you become an individual? Conforming is being similar in form or type ; behaving according to socially acceptable conventions or standards vs individuality which is a separate existence ; the quality or character of a particular person or thing that distinguishes them from others to the same kind. Two very opposites, but you first conform and then further develop into individuals, you take what you learn from others and our own experiences, then finally mature into individuals.

The movie, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, expresses many situations which we might still live in. Ray Bradbury showcased many examples where the government validated what was right for society. People were so comfortable living under censorship that they did not even imagine they were giving up their freedom of expression. The main character in the novel, a 30-year-old man named Guy Montag, became a fireman whose duties were to search for books in people’s homes and burned them. He performed his job and did not think he was harming anyone. His dad was a fireman and so was his grandfather. He felt being a fireman was a family tradition. Throughout the movie, Guy Montag rebelled against control and conformity. He had realized

While Montag is on the run in the streets, he hears through a Seashell a command for everyone to look for him, and his mind pictures a very realistic image: “He imagined thousands on thousands of faces peering into yards, into alleys, and into the sky, faces hid by curtains, pale, night-frightened faces, like gray animals peering from electric caves, faces with gray colorless eyes, gray tongues and gray thoughts looking out through the numb flesh of his face” (132). He pictures “thousands on thousands” of people conforming to the will of an upper government, no questions asked. They all will do exactly as told, but something about the image seems especially unsettling. The word “gray” was repeated four times and connected to every phrase describing them. This color is often associated with blandness and lack of unique color, and

The theme of knowledge vs. ignorance is present in the differences between Mildred and Clarisse. These foil characters are a perfect example of how both knowledge and ignorance are displayed in Montag’s society. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Mildred explains the new parlor wall technology after Montag tries to convince her that she overdosed on pills the night before, “Well, this play comes on the wall-to- wall circuit in ten minutes. They mailed me my part this morning. I sent in some box stops. They write the script with one part missing. It’s a new idea. The homemaker, that’s me, is the missing part. When it comes time for the missing lines, they all look at me out of the three walls and I say the lines” (Bradbury 17). As presented in this piece of text, you can see that the technology plays a huge role in MIldred’s life and often consumes her, distracting her from the things that truly matter. Throughout the novel, the society’s reliance on technology leads to a devastating chasm of ignorance, but others in the society refuse to conform to their piers ways. Clarisse McClellan is a great example of knowledge from the novel Fahrenheit 451. When speaking to Montag about how others believe she is “antisocial” because of her “unusual ways”, Clarisse says, “I rarely watch the ‘parlor walls’ or go to races or Fun Parks. So I’ve had lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars starting rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last” (Bradbury 7). Though Clarisse is a part of a society full of distractions, she doesn’t let those things take away from her inquisitive personality. Through her short amount of time in the story, she teaches Montag to look for the details and to absorb as much knowledge as he can because in this society, because it is very hard to come across. There are many other ways that knowledge and ignorance are presented in Fahrenheit 451.

A prime example of a view that is not strictly conformity or individuality is the perspective of Guy Montag, the protagonist, who happens to be a fireman. Montag’s view shifts and tiptoes the line in between conformity and individuality. For example, there is a scene in which Montag is conversing with Clarisse McClellan while walking in the rain. Clarisse had told Montag that she liked to walk in the rain and that it tasted good to her. He counters that he is not sure he would enjoy it, due to never trying it. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury writes, “And then, very slowly, as he walked, he tilted his head back in the rain, for just a few moments, and opened his mouth…” (24). This is significant because this event shows how Montag is a bit curious and questioning when he is around people he trusts. When no one is around to judge him, he retains individuality but when he is around others, he conforms to the government’s views. Later on in the book, Montag is in the firehouse, examining all of the other firemen. He notices how similar they look to each other and to himself. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury writes, :Had he ever seen a fireman that didn’t have black hair, black brows, a fiery face and a blue-steel shaved but unshaved look? These men were all mirror image of himself.” (33). This evidence shows that all the firemen are carbon copies of each other. Montag shows his realization that he has unknowingly conformed to the societal standards and was a fireman because he looked like all the other firemen.

“ Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons,

In Fahrenheit 451, it is not true that “ignorance is bliss” because many people in the this seemingly blissful society are suicidal and empty, they try to be happy by ignoring or escaping their reality and staying ignorant, and the only time when Montag is truly happy in the novel is when he first sees the world beyond the city. Handymen come to Montag’s house to pump and replace Mildred’s poisoned blood, and they tell Montag about their job, “We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built” (Bradbury 19). This shows that in this society, many people are unhappy and try to commit suicide through overdose of pills, which is why the handymen are so readily available. New machines were built to efficiently deal with the countless suicide attempts in the city, which shows

Throughout second semester we have read many stories that have strongly illustrated the idea of conformity, but in Fahrenheit 451, Swamp Boy, and Harrison Bergeron the theme of conformity is most prevalent. The characters in each of the three stories become trapped by the act of conforming to their societal norms. The people in the societies participate in confirmation because it is what everyone else is doing, and they crave acceptance from others. As humans, we conform to the world around us because it is expected and we fear any individual that abides by the social norms.

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the government censors the way society sees the world. The government destroys books and distracts society with entertaining television programs so that they do not realize the unacceptable reality of their dystopian world. The prolonged concealment of the truth has resulted in the ignorance of nearly all of society. Ignorance is most often defined as the lack of knowledge, education, or awareness. Taking a closer look into the lives of the characters of Fahrenheit 451 will prove that ignorance does not make people happy and peaceful, contrary to Captain Beatty’s beliefs.

The society in 451 Fahrenheit can be described in many ways; it can be described by how it is controlled by the government, its affects, and the connections that it makes to the book “The Giver”.

Since people do not have meaningful media, they lack knowledge and are ignorant. There is even a group in this world whose job is to stifle knowledge by burning books. Bradbury shows that ignorance creates a society where people do not have meaningful interactions with their friends and families. The only thing that the people in this society care about is their televisions and other meaningless media. The people become ignorant to the problems of others. In the book, Montag says to his wife, “I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much?” The people of this futuristic world know nothing but the meaningless television they watch. They do not care about their neighbors, families, or the suffering. The ignorance of the people also prevents them from learning from the mistakes that have already been made in the past. This theme is present in the end of the book when Montag joins the other me who memorize literature. He realizes the people can only be snapped from their ignorance by seeing where it led

The temperature in which paper burst into flames is 451 degrees. In Fahrenheit 451 written by: Ray Bradbury the main character is Guy Montag. Montag is not your regular firefighter; he starts fires instead of putting them out. The laws in the Fahrenheit 451 society banned humans from reading books; if you were to be caught with books, the firefighters would come and light your house on fire. In Fahrenheit 451 the censorship was the use of technology along with the burning of the books; without knowledge from books everyone was to remain equal. Nobody had different opinions about things and there was not someone who was smarter than another. The town only gained information from watching television and listening to the

is a fireman who breaks into someone's house every once in a while to burn all

The usual Orwellian dystopia of a big-brother state and censorship is often compared with Fahrenheit 451’s content; however, I believe the two perspectives and purposes of George Orwell and Ray Bradbury to be very much different (as Bradbury states in the interview in the back of the book).I chose to write about the theme of conformity and individuality and what Bradbury was communicating through his characters regarding that topic. As a result of that choice, I have found Captain Beatty to be a perfect character to focus on in order to argue that: Although there may be arguments stating that the society Bradbury depicts is one of mindless collectivism, Captain Beatty’s interactions with Montag and the holistic behaviour of the people illustrate the dangers of a highly individualized society devoid of positive conformity. The source of this textual analysis will be the book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Conformity is a thing that most people succumb to unknowingly. A quote by Colin Wilson describes those poor souls as follows, "The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain”. This quote could be interpreted as an insult of man and their cowardice, but if you look past it and think about the context of the world the quote is applying it becomes a massive discrediting of all that man stands for. The quote looks past the trivial little man and looks more so at the center of this damned society. This quote looks to denounce three major systems that perpetuate a constant stink of society breaking conformity. Those three horrendous breeding grounds of conformity are as follows, organized religion, patriarchal society, and the educational system.