Fahrenheit 451 Quote Analysis

In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury shows us that this book is described as a totalitarian dystopian story. In the beginning of the book he explains the hatred that is held by the people against books and he carries out this theme throughout the whole story. By stating “So now you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless” (Bradbury 83). This quote is stating that the government is taking control over people by taking the little things, such as books, that provide mankind with information on a day to day basis, making it easy for the people’s minds to grow and become more educated. Within the quote that is used, Bradbury uses imagry when he says “pores in the face of life” he is refuring to the knowledge that comes from the books that leads people to questioning the authority compared to the ignorance of the society that is shown throughout the novel.

An idea is almost like a thought. You can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t taste it, you can’t really hear it, and you can’t touch it. But it is existent. Its contents can be fulfilled and its purpose served. It is an object without a material self.

Oblivion to the outside world is a very common theme in this novel. As the story takes place, occasionally the roar of bombing plane can be heard above. “…How in the hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn’t someone wanna talk about it!... Is it true, the world works hard and we play?” In this quote, it is shown that no one knows much about the war’s status and the condition of other places, but never want to know because they’re

It is a sort of wooden gun to the people themselves; and, if ever they should use it in earnest as a real one against each other, it will surely split. But it is not the less necessary for this; for the people must have some complicated machinery or other and hear its din, to satisfy the idea of government which they have…I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it” (Civil

To begin with, without government, society would be in a state of chaos. Hobbes argues in the Leviathan why people need government: “continual fear and danger of violent; and the life of man, solitary poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” This quote means that without government chaos will reign. Also men will live in fear of death and bad conditions. Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated in his writing The Social Contract “This sum of forces can be produced only by the combination of man”. This quote means that without a combination of man there can be no sum of forces, so without the sum of forces in society how can the people live peacefully. People would steal kill and do other illegal things without

The government viewed ignorance as more important than knowledge. This created an immoral society that not only cared exclusively about its own people, but also became violent toward

Despite the fact that people can still go on and be happy even though life can suck, people don't ignore the problems are world face. There is a difference between ignoring and being thoughtful, no person should wake up everyday to immediately see the disasters and spend all of their energy on those events. People have a right to think of what they want, and if people want to not make a verbal altercation or statement about the event, they have a right not to. However, it goes the same way, and Americans tend to have a terrible habit of this. People cannot make a big deal about one event, for example, 9/11, and then proceed to ignore other events entirely. Colin Wilson does have a point that people tend to ignore the disasters and miseries, and rather just accept that they exist but do not proceed to put any action to help prevent them. Yet, the average man and woman do have a caring heart for those in this world and usually do point out the problems of the world, and try to altercate the

system, living vapid and meaningless lives that they are unable to escape. Initially, Montag is

The government is necessary to have in a society because people will not be able to get rid of them nor will they have the rights to do so. But, the government can be supplied with an unlimited source of power to rule so that the people in that society can obey the government’s rules and requirements. People will not feel tempted to overcome and change the government because the government will be running their society the right way and making people believe that their society is fine.

People within the society are so obsessed with escaping their reality that they are not aware of everything else that occurring, they’re having so much fun “at [their] homes [they’ve] forgotten the world”(69) and meanwhile they’re rich while “the rest of the world is so poor, that [they] just don’t care”(69). The motives of a corrupted, dystopian-like society is to create an environment where people can avoid the problems of the rest of the world, but the isolation eventually becomes ignorance where people lack the knowledge to know how what goes on in the outside world is impacting them. For instance, women within the novels such as Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles, who are punctilious seem eager with their lives, yet when it comes to war or anything involving the outside world they become oblivious but they continue to rely on the government. When asked about the war and her husband, Mrs.Phelps responded by repeating what the government has told her, “He’ll be back next week”(90) because “the Army said so… [a] quick

But there are times when it is none of that. Times when all I see are empty shells running as fast as they can from point A to point B with no time or inclination to pause a moment along the way. They are too busy making it, buying it, having it, looking like it, to see those that they bump into, run over, or miss entirely. There are times when it is a wasteland of heart¬less, spiritless bodies who can't see beyond the end of their noses, and their blinders have been on so long they don't even notice them anymore. What's more, if you pointed it out to them, tried to show them everything they've been missing, they'd look at you like you had just fallen out of the sky.

Critics of Anarchism argue that without the rules and systems in place, people would not act harmoniously or in the benefit of each other, but more rather in their own self interest, that anarchism holds human nature too highly. Without a system of government or a societal pressure of morality, people would be more prejudiced, more violent and act only for themselves because no one would be able to stop them. Those who had more power would control the weak and mass amounts of people would become oppressed or eradicated. While these critics may have a point, Goldman counters their opinions with the fact that the system we live under has created those ideas within humans, that it has stalled the abilities of human kind (Goldman). If there were

Many people in the world feel like the government is not necessary and exists for the sole purpose of controlling or putting power over people. However, the government serves three distinct purposes and without it, countries would quickly fall apart, and eventually the world would follow suit. Governments exist to maintain authority, ensure national security, and manage society for the good of all of the citizens. While some people may argue that there are countries that have survived in the absence of government, these countries have often times become a failed state. According to John Presley in his lecture entitled, The Absences of Government, a failed state is defined by a government that cannot uphold to their purposes, which causes countries to become unstable and unsafe

This is the main reason why the people start to create private association activities to find solutions to the issues that the state cannot resolve (Berman, 1997). I think this I the central reason why the Weimar Republic fails, with a weak government the civil society was forced to developed itself for achieving particular wellbeing, the state was the organization which does not create the conditions to work united.

Jackie Jura further explains that, “in our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are the ones who are furthest from seeing the world for what it truly is; in general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane.”