Fahrenheit 451

             In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury develops several characters to make
             his case against the evils of censorship. In a world void of books and
             intellectual freedom, reins brain-dead Mildred and control-freak Beatty.
             In sharp contrast, Clarisse is a happy young girl thirsty for knowledge
             about the world around her. Clarisse is a catalyst for her friend Montag
             to transform his life from a mindless drone to an intellectual thinker.
             Although Clarisse fails to survive society's intolerance for breaking the
             rules, Montag escapes to enjoy a new and better life.
             Bradbury uses Mildred as a character to illustrate what happens to a
             person that is devoid of information regarding what is going on in their
             own world. Mildred lives a robotic, unhappy life as evidenced by her
             attempted suicide and her reliance on technical diversions from reality and
             closeness with her husband such as her seashell radios and three-wall
             television. Even her relationships with her friends revolve around
             watching and talking about television. Immersed in ignorance and her
             belief that books are worthless, she is unaware of her own unhappiness.
             Chief Beatty represents an authoritarian society that bans books in
             order to prevent deviation from conformity and structured routines. He is
             a defender of this type of world because he believes that it makes people
             more equal and compatible with one another. Armed with his Mechanical
             Hound, Beatty tracks down and destroys anyone that has a different idea of
             what the world should be like. When Beatty orders Montag to burn his own
             books and when Beatty allows Montag to kill him, Bradbury shows the reader
             Beatty's desperate need to be in complete control over the lives of others.
             Unlike Mildred, Clarisse is happy and is excited by learning about the
             world around her. As Clarisse becomes friends with Montag, her questions
             awaken him to the realities of ...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Fahrenheit 451. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 18:08, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/200255.html