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The Role Of Knowledge In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

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Ray Bradbury once stated, “ We can’t live alone in any society. But the best way to help a society or group, is to be the best individual in it that we can be.” In Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Montag is an individual who wants to change his world. His main goal is to gain knowledge for himself and his society. Although his society believes that knowledge can lead to unhappiness, Montag wishes to change the viewpoint of his society because people need information from books to be independent and to make their own decisions in life. Society will constantly attempt to keep knowledge away from its people. Although knowledge is emitted by fire, Montag strives for the knowledge that he feels will soon be lost. Ray Bradbury uses the symbols such as the phoenix, fire, and hands to represent Montag’s struggles with his society and his craving for knowledge. The phoenix Granger mentions to Montag represents immortality. “There was this silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprag out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again” (Bradbury 156). In Montag’s society, people are compared to the phoenix because once they end a problem, they create a new one. Granger wants Montag to be aware that even if the society changes its mind about the way people should live, they will come up with something else to force upon people.

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