Examples Of Ignorance In Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury wrote the novel Fahrenheit 451, which is a story about a society that believed books were for burning and where thinking was discouraged. Throughout the novel there are several incidents that can be

Bradbury also serves to warn us of the danger of ignorance in this futuristic dystopia. This again is reflective of the Nazi book burnings and the idea of people leaving behind knowledge and becoming ‘blissfully’ ignorant of the past. In Fahrenheit 451 the fireman's responsibility is to destroy knowledge and promote ignorance in order to ensure equality. Ignorance, however, promotes suicide, poor decisions, and empty lives. When Beatty discovers Montag's hidden collection of books, he explains that all firemen become curious of books, and may have time to explore them for a short time before disposing of them. He then tells Montag about the state of the world: people are made

Finally, throughout the novel Bradbury presents a conflict between ignorance and understanding. The general society is being numbed into believing that knowledge makes people disagree with each other and unhappy. To prevent people from reading and gaining knowledge, the firemen burn all books. By committing these actions, they are promoting sameness and ignorance, to supposedly maintain happiness among society. Captain Beatty explains the history of firemen to Montag, speaking of their society’s view of equality. “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.” (Bradbury, page 58) Captain Beatty is hinting that books encourage people to question authority and think about why things are done the way they are

Not everyone is born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone is made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.”(58).Beatty is explaining the chaos he believes to be held within books, the book being the ammunition the person being the gun.To the leaders of montages society teaching a man is like loading a gun and pointing it at one's self.Another example of rebelion is when montag says "Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! "(74).Montag understands that books will not solve everything but he believes that the knowledge within them will give them the power to eliminate past mistakes.Montag is rebelling against the government to advocate the right to read books and to gain knowledge.The final example of rebellion is when Montag is reading Gulliver's travels, in the book it says “It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end”(116).Although this isn't an original line by Bradbury it explain Montag perfectly, he would rather die than see the people further repressed by the government.This quote is ironic because although

Knowledge is power. A power that gives the people their right to have influence in society. Imagine a world where this power was taken away. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a fireman named Guy Montag lives in a society some time in the future where a fireman’s job is to burn all books in order to prevent people from trying to revolt against the government with knowledge, and the books are replaced by mindless technology. Montag is originally one of the majority of people who is brainwashed and conforms to this society. After meeting an unusual teenager named Clarisse who introduces him to books, Montag starts to wonder what books are really like. As he begins reading literature, Montag breaks away from the others and becomes one of these non-conformists himself, speaking out against the corrupt society. Many key aspects of the society set up by Bradbury show how technology has destroyed this fictional society and causes readers to notice similarities in today’s real society.

Burns itself up and then rises from the ashes and starts anew. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 the book hating society destroys books to stop individual thinking, but some brave people bring back the books. Montag, the main character, changes his views on books and knowledge drastically throughout the story. Although Bradbury uses symbols throughout the story such as water, the phoenix, and a mechanical hound, and one of the themes of the book is ignorance versus knowledge. The message is the dangers of this society is what things could become if they use technology the wrong way

“Then, moaning, she ran forward, seized a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator. He caught her, shrieking. He held her and she tried to fight away from him scratching,” (63). In the novel Fahrenheit 451 follows the protagonist, Guy Montag, and his interactions with society discouraging and encouraging his discovery of the illegal books. Along the way he understands who are the poisonous people in his dystopian world and who are not; changing his perspective to lose trust in his wife Mildred, from previous quote, and finding safety with Faber, a retired professor he came by one day in a park. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 the author demonstrates the idea that when there is censorship in the world, ignorance will follow because when a subject is hidden from one anything they do regarding it is under the impression of their lack of knowledge surrounding the topic, this becomes more relevant when Ray Bradbury acknowledges the emotions of people who have read books and whom haven't and their general opinions of them.

We as humans tend to have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. We look for knowledge about everybody and everything that surrounds us from our day-to-day life. Sadly though, we must accept that in the grand scheme of life we (as a society) tend to put pleasure above our quest for knowledge. The pursuit of knowledge tends to take time and energy, two things we call invaluable, and it also shows us things that might depress us. Contrastingly, ignorance takes no time and energy. Also, (as the common saying goes) ignorance is bliss. It keeps ugly truths away from us. But that is no reason to forsake knowledge for ignorance. In the early 1900’s, two books were published that would eventually be referred to the pinnacle of classical literature. The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451 both stand out as stunning literary works. But their success is not the only thing they share. Though they are very dissimilar in setting as well as genre, the two books have the same theme. The theme is the universal message the book is trying to inform the readers about. Fitzgerald and Bradbury both convey the theme of the pursuit of knowledge versus the pleasure of ignorance in The Great Gatsby and Fahrenheit 451.

One example of this in the novel, is with firemen as their role is to burn books and literature rather than to put fires out. In this story, Guy Montag plays the role of an antihero. Guy is a fireman who finds treasure and meaning in reading books. As Montag goes astray from his job, he becomes a fugitive to his city that because of their absurdity Guy memorizes the passages he reads so he retains the knowledge mentally rather than physically. World history portrays the idea of people that burn literature as Nazi Germany rises in 1933. As the nazis destroy literature, they destroy knowledge and the evidence of knowledge. This is an important factor to Nazi Germany’s rise as “the book burnings and other steps to remove “Jewish influence” from German institutions foreshadowed much more catastrophic Nazi plans for the Jews of Europe” (1933 Book Burnings). As knowledge is power, when people remove knowledge, they remove power. This is the idea that influences these major book burnings. The idea Fahrenheit 451 characterizes of the destruction of literature reflects upon the acts in the 1933 event that kindles the fire that burns and scars

Set in a dystopian society, Montag is fighting for something very interesting... Books. Although it may seem irrational, a war on books, it mirrors our society in many ways. In Montag's world, books are illegal and anyone caught with them will have them burn and will be arrested- If they refuse they will burn in the flames along with them. For years they have obeyed this system; Now finally someone had the courage to question has books hold and what can they offer. In the book Fahrenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury the author predicts that our society will eventually censor our knowledge and the people will become ignorant. This becomes clear to the reader when Montag notices the others around him have become oblivious and unaware to of what's happening

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 depicts a dystopian society where books are burned to protect the people from a perceived threat of knowledge and the resulting problems an informed and thinking society would bring upon itself. Ignorance is bliss. The theme, fear of knowledge, can be seen throughout this book in the ways the characters Faber, Beatty, and Clarisse speak about, react to, and think about books.

Knowledge is what keeps society intact and keeps people from turning into savages. The story portrays the people of the society as basically just savage killers due to the lack of knowledge. Nothing would be possible without the fact that we continue to gain knowledge, if everyone in our country stopped gaining knowledge we would never increase our technology or change our way of life. We would be left behind by all the other countries who continued to advance and we’d eventually get taken over because their technology will far surpass our own. Ray Bradbury seems to believe that knowledge keeps us together and stops us from being destroyed. He believes that we need knowledge to advance and to keep the morals of society intact rather than stop

Knowledge is power, and that’s the problem. In the futuristic writings of author Ray Bradbury, one can see the impractical problems they believe books cause in their society. In Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag a Fireman, not to be confused with a firefighter, was forced to burn books. Using a kerosene spray gun or flamethrower, Montag would take the books and burn them. Although the books held a plethora of information, this lack knowledge lead to a dystopian society full of censorship, ignorant unlearned individuals, and technological advancements beyond those which we know of today. It was not until Montag stole a book that he had a change of heart.

In Montag’s world, books are said to be the very source of many dangers. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it” (Bradbury 58). Even the authors themselves are deemed “full of evil thoughts” and they “lock[ed] up their typewriters” (Bradbury 57) because of this. But the problem in this society wasn’t the books themselves, it was the content that these so-called evil books provided. Any profound thought that could upset even the most minute minority was supposedly destructive to the happiness of the society as a whole. So, these books stopped being written and started being burned. No one spoke up on the behalf of the book-lovers; not professors or even the very authors who placed their mark on these simmering pages. The people allowed their society to change, and

The choice of what is done with the power of knowledge lies in the hands of the beholder. In an advanced society live firemen who have the job of burning houses of those who own books. The protagonist, a fireman named Guy Montag, begins the story off saying,”It was a pleasure to burn”(Bradbury 1). He lives this destructive lifestyle until one day on his way home he encounters Clarisse, a analytic girl who questions him if he is happy. Her intriguing manner pushes him into not only stealing books from houses in the process of burning them, but also reading them. Once Montag realizes why knowledge is considered a burden, he conspires to frame the firemen. During this process the fire chief, Beatty, discovers what he is doing, and tries to stop him. This results in him killing his chief and a few of his fellow firemen after he is forced to burn down his own home, only to barely escape to a camp full of fellow people who share the knowledge of books. The camp watches the city be bombed, and soon heads to the city to rebuild it from the very beginning, starting with books. Throughout the roughly 150 pages of this novel Ray Bradbury shows the importance on it how you use your choices and how they will affect the conclusion.