The Power Of Knowledge In Berenbury, By Ray Bradbury

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

The author uses imagery to develop the characters Montag and Beatty. At first Montag was able to do his job (burning books) without giving a second thought. Throughout the story Montag grows an appreciation for books. This dramatic change is shown in the first paragraph of the passage as Montag’s burning of books is described. The

Beatty uses his knowledge to attack Montag after the fireman has made the decision to join the radicals and to oppose the burning of books. Montag returns to the fire station in order to surrender a book, creating the illusion of conforming to Beatty’s expectations. Before Montag has an opportunity to speak Beatty begins to confound him with contradictory statements from

Knowledge is the driving force behind any society. Without knowledge, a society is bound to become corrupt and nonfunctioning. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a firefighter named Montag. In this futuristic and utopian society, firefighters do not put out fires, they start them. The job of a firefighter is to find and burn books, which have been banned by the government. Montag goes along with the firefighter lifestyle until he meets a young girl named Clarisse. She causes him to start wondering about books, and Montag decides to grab one from a woman's house before it is burned down. Montag reads it and realizes how important books are to humanity. He knows that what firefighters are doing is wrong, and sets out to change it. Bradbury uses this story to portray a corrupt society that he believes will come of the real world, and some of his ideas have already come true.

As the plot presented itself, fire did also. Fire was used as a solution to get rid of society’s ills. Ills in this society include nonconformity, overflow in wisdom and knowledge, and government doubt or mistrust. They all derived from one common factor: books. Beatty claimed that without books “…all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door” (28). Books were the greatest evil, because it places ideas of controversy and critical thinking into the minds of readers. Explaining to Montag the quick fix to the trouble of books, Beatty said, “And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind…” (28). As these issues became more and more prominent with time, something to subdue or suppress them was needed. Fire was the answer. So, in their noble position as firemen, Montag and his coworkers destroyed any detected books with fire immediately. This way, residents cannot read them and implant radical ideas. The

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

Therefore, through books, Montag becomes conscious of the monotony of his previous life, and now rebels against the very foundations of his society. Due to this intellectual illumination, Montag begins to acknowledge the details of the world around him, details he had once ignored: ‘”Bet I know something else you don’t. There’s dew on the grass this morning.”’As enlightenment dawns on Montag, he finally begins to realise the power within books (i.e. they hold the key to power through knowledge) and this is his ‘crime’ against society: ‘There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house...’ Despite his newfound interest, Montag is still struggling to understand the concept of literature. Once again however, Montag is pushed in the right direction by Professor Faber. Under Faber’s guidance, Montag recognises that ‘There is nothing magical about [books] at all. The magic is only with what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment.’ This quote exemplifies the fact that although books are the combination of mere ink and paper, it is the beliefs and the knowledge within a book that are so incredibly powerful.

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.

In Fahrenheit 451, instead of putting out fires,the firemen start the fires to destroy books. The reason they destroy the books is to keep the people from reading them, to keep the people from learning what the books have to say. People who disobey the law end up being punished, but some just want to sacrifice everything they have for the knowledge of what the books gave them. One woman was caught with books in her home and was set on fire because she refused to leave, she wanted to stay with the books because she loved them that much that she was willing to give up her life. Even with a woman being set on fire with her books, the firemen still had to do their job and burn them, even if it means murder.

Furthermore, knowledge versus ignorance plays a role in Fahrenheit 451. The reason behind it is there is so much importance in technology than literature itself, society ignores the word. Most children grow up engaged in the TV, rather than reading and developing their minds efficiently. Bradbury expands on this topic by Guy Montag stating “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually, gradually neglected” (53). Bradbury is trying to explain how children will grow up with a smaller English vocabulary and a lack of word choice without literature. David T Wright, an American writer, has his own thoughts on knowledge versus ignorance. Wright touches on this topic by saying that without reading, most of Montag’s society will lack mental exercise for the brain to retain information; resulting in memory loss (104). Continuing with Wright’s thoughts, he claims that not only do people completely forget that firemen are supposed to put out fires, but also neither Guy nor Mildred remember how they met (104). Rodney Smolla had a similar view, he stated “Bradbury seems to be insisting that while it may be possible to incinerate a book, killing the book will not kill its ideas” (110). Expanding of Smolla’s thought, getting rid of books will not change the words and its purpose will

“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.

He also meets Clarisse right before that, which introduces him to the fact that he is not happy and points out how flawed his society is. This causes him to have a sort of identity crisis which brings in the man vs self conflict. Another man vs society problem that goes with the main conflict occurs at the same time. During the book, especially after meeting Clarisse, Montag develops a pronounced hatred of technology. This is shown in Montag’s metaphors applying to technology throughout the book. Most commonly, he refers to technology as undesirable animals/objects. For example, when Mildred is getting her stomach pumped by “the black cobra”(12) and Montag refers to Faber’s two-way radio as a “green bullet”(112) and a “gnat tickling his ear"(88). Also when he burns his house, he makes it a priority to burn his wife’s three TV-walls. Finally, there is a man vs man conflict between Montag and Beatty. Once Montag is “sick” after the burning of the old woman’s house and Montag’s stealing of the Bible from her house, this reveals later Montag’s secret stash of books. But Montag plainly gives away to Beatty that he took a book

Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, is based in a futuristic time where technology rules our everyday lives and books are viewed as a bad thing because it brews free thought. Although today’s technological advances haven’t caught up with Bradbury’s F451, there is a very real danger that society might end up relying on technology at the price of intellectual development. Fahrenheit 451 is based in a futuristic time period and takes place in a large American City on the Eastern Coast. The futuristic world in which Bradbury describes is chilling, a future where all known books are burned by so called "firemen." Our main character in Fahrenheit 451 is a fireman known as Guy Montag, he has the visual characteristics of the average

Knowledge is the driving force behind any society. Without knowledge, a society is bound to become corrupt and nonfunctioning. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of a firefighter named Montag. In this futuristic and utopian society, firefighters do not put out fires, they start them. The job of a firefighter is to find and burn books, which have been banned by the government. Montag goes along with the firefighter lifestyle until he meets a young girl named Clarisse. She gets him wondering about books, and Montag decides to grab one from a woman's house before it is burned down. Montag reads it and realizes how important books are to humanity. He knows that what firefighters are doing is wrong, and sets out to change it. Bradbury

Education in the novel was completely different to the world today’s education. In the novel if caught reading or possession of a book it is considered illegal and the firemen will burn that house down. Clarisse McClellan asked Guy Montag did he ever read any of the books he burned his reply was “That’s against the law!” (Bradbury 8). Bradbury is telling the readers that in this society, people were not properly educated and are most likely to be incapable of comprehending what they are reading. There is another question Clarisse asked which took Montag by surprise, “I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn accident and they needed firemen to stop flames”(Bradbury 8). In the present till to this day firemen have been helping put the fire out instead of starting, but somehow in the novel that was considered a myth because no one knows the past due to no