Disillusionment In Literature

In the first three lines of the story, the reader is given a sense of Donny’s virtue during youth and how it

In the short story, “Teenage Wasteland”, there is a troubled boy named Donny. Donny has trouble with his attitude and his grades, so his family decides to get him help. They are suggested to go to “a tutor with considerable psychological training”(Tyler 3) in order to help Donny. As time goes on, his grades start to get worse; even though he seems to be happier and have a better attitude at times. His mother does not have a lot of trust, but is told to leave it to the tutor, Calvin. After Donny gets expelled and takes his final exams, Donny disappears. He does not come back by the end of the story. Many may believe that Donny’s mother, Daisy, is the most to blame for the outcome of Anne Tyler’s story “Teenage Wasteland,”

Overall, Cal is responsible for Donny’s failure because he imprints bad habits on him, acts as a friend instead of a parent, and disconnects him from his parents. Cal instills Donny with a tendency to blame authority and a bad work ethic. Cal behaves as if Donny is not able to make any mistakes and that studying is a waste of time. All of Cal’s teachings lead Donny to fail. Next, Donny’s failure is a result of Cal acting as a friend towards Donny, not as an authoritative figure. Cal does not care about Donny’s academics or reprimand his bad behaviors. He does not encourage Donny to do well in school, making his grades decline and causes Donny to believe that his actions are acceptable. In addition, Cal is at fault for Donny’s failure because

“Teenage Wasteland" is told from Daisy's perspective. By doing this, Anne Taylor only gives us Daisy’s point of view of Donny. This may paint a completely different picture of what others think of him. From the very beginning of the story you get a sense of how Donny’s character will continue to change. “He used to have very blonde hair, almost white, cut shorter than other children so that on his crown a little cowlick always stood up to catch the light.” Donny was depicted to be innocent. Tyler uses the words “light”and “white” and this makes me think of only pure and good things. Soon after we see how Tyler changes her tone with Donny. “As he grew older, his hair grew darker, and he wore it longer-past his collar even.” To me this changes our view on Donny without even

Although Donny academic tutor has tried to help his troubling problem, he never succeeds. “He admitted he’d made no headway with Donny and said it was because Donny was emotionally disturbed.”(Tyler 266) Donny has fixed his bad deeds at school, but he turned into a despondent teenager. “He did his assignments, and he earned average grades, but he gathered no friends, joined no clubs. there was something exhausted and defeated about him.”(Tyler 266) Donny has been fighting through his depression, but he eventually escapes it

Conformity and ignorance go hand in hand. Fahrenheit 451, The Lego Movie, and The Twilight Zone’s ‘Obsolete Man’ are all prime examples of this statement. It is glaringly obvious in Fahrenheit 451, specifically when Clarisse is talking to Montag about how her uncle was arrested for driving slow. He was complying with all the rules and regulations of his society, yet he was still arrested. This is because he wouldn’t conform to what everyone else was doing. Mildred mentions in the book that when she needs to let out her anger she drives around fast and kills animals in the road. This is a stark contrast to Clarisse’s uncle, who wanted to drive slow in order to appreciate the beauty of life, not destroy it. This labels Clarisse’s uncle as a non-conformist, something so dangerous that you can be

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.

In both Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Vonnegut’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, the authors show major concerns about the future. Bradbury’s major concern is the misuse of technology that leads to the corruption of society while Vonnegut’s major concern is overpopulation and the lack of natural resources for the future. Both authors show concerns that can turn out to be real if people do not do anything about the environment and about technology.

A theme for Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is that knowledge can prepare us for the future. According to Fahrenheit 451 it states,”Montag had done nothing. His hand had done it all, his hand, with a brain of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had turned thief.” This supports the theme because the only reason Guy Montag stole the books was because he wanted to know more about his job to see if his job isn’t helping his society which supports the claim since he taking resources from the scene of where the fire was and using the books to his advantage to see if he can stop the problem of his job. According to Fahrenheit 451 it states, “Do you ever read any of the books you burn?” He laughed. “That’s against the

3. His eyes widened and, accentuated by his __________________________________, you could tell he was sickened by the sight of his wife in the room. 4. The __________________________________ philosophy is to use a practical approach to problems, rather than theories. 5. She __________________________________ conversed with her friend on phone. 6. The room was hidden behind the __________________________________ green curtain. 7. He and his __________________________________ hung out at the bar smoking. 8. He could feel __________________________________ anger building inside himself. Matching: Match the antonym to the vocabulary word. _____ 1. concerned _____ 2. compliant _____ 3. clear, truthful _____ 4. ornate _____ 5. tiny _____ 6. beneficial _____ 7. harmful _____ 8. ideally A. austere B. equivocate C. mulish D. cynically E. benignly F. colossal G. apathetically H. pernicious

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches”. This quote was put into words by the great author, Ray Bradbury, explaining his point of view that books are useless and could be burned in many ways, and lack of knowledge should occur. Fahrenheit 451 is one of Bradbury’s famous dystopian fictional novels that were published in 1953, which showed lack of knowledge as one of its concepts. Lack of knowledge exists throughout the novel because firemen burned books, people of the society had no time to think, and the society relied on technology more than anything else.

The author chose the words “voting” and “pleasing” to support how having a leader is important. They decided to have a leader so everything stays in place. This shows civilization, because if there was no leader, then there would be no one to make sure the group stays together.

As unfortunate as it is, we will go through many struggles, hardships, and heartbreaks throughout the span of our lives. While we've all experienced times where we wish we could bypass all the low points, and instead experience only happiness, there is reason behind the trials and tribulations we face. For example, in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the main character, Joel, falls in love with a girl named Clementine only to have the relationship fall apart. Breakups are a natural, yet very painful part of life and it would be spectacular if we didn't have to go through them, but sometimes it's these hardships that provide us with a lesson to be gained. We learn about what we like or dislike about a partner. We learn about what may have caused the relationship to fail, and then we learn how we can avoid those problems in future relationships. In Fahrenheit 451, the plot encompasses around the idea that the world needs more censorship, and in the dystopia in which the novel takes place, the solution to a seemingly "better" society is to burn books. The solution in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is to have your memory of the person that caused you heartbreak to be erased. Perhaps these solutions may "fix" certain negative qualities about the way life operates, they are only putting a band-aid over life's problems, and therefore not resulting in an effective or morally correct outcome. Given the fact that censorship poses a hindrance to the development of society

Fahrenheit 451 is an enlightening story featuring a man, Guy Montag, who is struggling with his desire to read in a society where reading is prohibited. While it is plausible that Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 to inform the readers on how damaging it is to disregard books and turn completely to technology, it is much more likely that he wrote this book to show how important thinking on your own, or individual thinking, is. He does this by creating Montag, a dynamic character who experiences a journey from ignorance to enlightenment. His purpose in doing this is to to warn his audience, predominantly teenagers and young adults, of a possible outcome if people don’t start thinking for themselves.

Firemen today are around to put out fires, but in Fahrenheit 451, the temperature books burn, they are the ones that start the fires when they hear about a house that contains books. Anti-Intellectualism was used in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by the firemen burning books and the houses that contained them. Anti-Intellectualism is when a group or individual disagrees with given knowledge, for example burning books in Fahrenheit 451 because they disagreed with the knowledge contained within them. Firemen saw books as nothing but a waste, but still went through with harsh punishments to anyone in possession of a book because it was a law. Similar was done throughout history. Something like that was a huge world event showing that we can be punished for knowledge. Events like the Salem witch trials, nazi occupied germany, and isis all believed that information should be censored and heavily practiced anti-intellectualism. That similar illegalization and burning of books in Fahrenheit 451 leads to unhappiness, anti-intellectualism of citizens, and even death to the very people who believed it was better for the population.