My Final Paper

Varant Dickranian
English 312
November 18, 2009
Professor Wexler

The Fall of Mankind

Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 is a story about man destroying the creation of mankind, where the every day normal class citizens do not know who their true identity is or what their purpose to life is. The great novel Fahrenheit 451, yet very controversial, is one of the most engaging story which makes me worry about the future and the society we live in today, and what might come up in the future. The story showed me how history can repeat itself, and how controlled society can get without even noticing it. Not only was the book amazing, but the film by Francois Truffaut was just as good and showed me how blind people can get. It was shocking to me at first to read about society where reading or owning a book is a felony, where one will get arrested for a possession of a book, and also the fact that the “fireman’s” job is to burn homes that contain books. The desecration of all types of books and banning it across the country will make everyone illiterate and
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ignorant, as many people were. In the great novel, Montag, the main character, is a fireman, whose job is to burn books and one day begins reading them and realizes that it was a masterpiece that was once done by a person, which causes his entire life, career, and marriage to fall apart. Also, the movie, directed by Francois Truffat, somewhat describes the society of the modern
day. We do live in a time where the media is taking over our minds and lives of many. We do live in a time where the media is taking over our minds and lives of many. In the novel, the Government has made it clear that reading novels or even owning one is a major illegal mistake, where if one is caught, the "firefighters" will come and burn your house down...along with the books. The reason for this is because the Government wants the society to be pulled and pushed into one way of thinking and believing. They want the people to all be the same and think towards the same direction.
In the novel, one can clearly see that the average person, and even the firemen themselves have no control over their act of freedom or even creativity. “I’ve got to go see me psychiatrist now. They make me go. I make up things to say. I don’t know what he thinks of me. He says I’m a regular onion! I keep him busy peeling away the layers” ( Fahrenheit 451 Page 52). The author provides us with a quote that proves the point where people in this society have no control over themselves at
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all, where they are forced to go to places such as a psychiatrist when they do not even know why. In this case, the quote shows how “they” are the people who are making decisions and not “me”. “They” are the superior people, the people who are in control who do not even identify themselves. “Books make people unhappy, they make them anti-social” (Fahrenheit 451). In the film, Guy Montag was brainwashed at first and did not even know what the purpose of books were, and why the government wanted to burn them all. He was blinded by the Government and did not even know how books are precious objects in this society, until he actually took one home and opened one.
“Go on, Montag, all this philosophy, let's get rid of it. It's even worse than the novels. Thinkers and philosophers, all of them saying exactly the same thing,"Only I am right! The others are all idiots!"” (Fahrenheit 451). The Government has made it clear that reading novels or even owning one is a major illegal
mistake, where if one is caught, the "firefighters" will come and burn your house down...along with the books. The reason for this is because the Government wants the society to be pulled/pushed into one way of thinking and believing. They want the people to all be the same and think towards the same direction. Eventually he turns out to sacrifice everything he has in his life in order to protect books and even wants to produce books. Montag eventually becomes addicted and cannot stand the
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fact of destroying man’s creation, where he becomes in deep trouble and is forced to burn his own house and is charged with many “illegal doings”. Montag eventually kills his chief and runs away where he eventually meets people like his own kind, who were once scholars and were now seen as “the social outcasts” or prisoners. Granger who was one of them told Montag “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made” (Page 182). This shows that people in the future, or in this case their society, will not be remembered after they pass out. This is due to the fact that people were not able to read, so therefore were not able to write and write down history, or even if they were, what good is it to write if you cannot read or even own a book? In other words, man kind will be finished if nobody writes the history down. As time progresses in the novel, the great war starts again and a few bombs turns the city to ashes, where Montag finally remembers how he met his wife and in some ways feels bad for her now that she is dead. After reading the novel, it seems to me that society has to reach its’ worst for us humans to eventually realize what has happened and what our mistakes were, which is when society can finally start all over.
After reading the novel, I realized how the media today is doing the same actions to people of our modern world today as we speak. The media and the
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government in some way are all showing us viewers, especially the young teens and young adults, how it is to be considered "hot" or "famous", "rich", and how it is to be considered as normal, and what one must do to be accepted in society. It makes it seem as if, if we do not own specific cars, and wear specific clothes we will not be considered as part of the norm. As one turns on the television today, one can come across all sorts of media where they are telling us how to dress, how to talk, what to drive, who to date, and how to live our lives in other words. Or take the news as
another example, the news broadcasters always put the viewers into fear by always containing news about murders, attacks, terrorist attacks, rapes, health concerns, diseases, etc. All this “news” excites us and makes us fear the real world, and whatever is around us, making us purchase whatever is necessary to be considered safe. It makes us do what they tell us to do, and not touch whatever they do not want us to touch. The Government hyped the entire nation up when the terrible incidents occurred in September 11, 2001, which made most Americans aware and afraid of their surroundings. “They” kept feeding us news about America being attacked by terrorists,
how the security in the airports are going to strengthen, how we must fight back the terrorists which most people did not even know who they were. We were also told how every phone conversation as of the September Eleven attacks are now going to
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be tapped by the Government, recording everything just in case they can catch the next terrorists. America is now built on fear thanks to all the incidents and all the doings of the U.S. Government. By building this country on fear and fearing all the citizens living in this country allows the Government to have absolute jurisdiction over everyone and everything. The moment one turns on the news today, we are constantly being informed about murder stories, or gang related stories to make us all aware and go out and buy guns. They are brainwashing us that the outside world is dangerous, and that if you want to be safe you have to do things “our way”. In reality, the outside world is not as dangerous and action packed as the news broadcasters make it seem like. With their shaky cameras and loud voices, they are adding fear into our plates to control us and our lives.
All this is very similar to the incidents that occur in the novel “Fahrenheit 451”, and I have come to the conclusion that most of us are blinded by it, how the media is really telling us what to do and what not to do, and how to live our lives. In other words, we as American citizens are being blindly controlled by the media force who we do not know of, just like how Montag's wife and the her friends were controlled. “What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives” (Fahrenheit 451). This quote shows
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how greatly they were being brainwashed and controlled by the secret Government force, how the average person believed that books were the worst thing that could ever happen to mankind, how books “ruin” us or turn on to us. But one thing that bothers me is how the average person never wanted to fight the law and actually open a book, let alone own one. Not one soul besides the protagonist in the novel, Montag and a very few characters, never had the will to challenge what was wrong in the society and open a book and see what it is about books that is to traitorous. The average citizens were just sheep following the commands of their sheepherders. Take drugs for example, in our society, we all know that drugs such as marijuana or cocaine are illegal and bad for us. One can see all sorts of advertisements, banners, billboards, even large messages painted on the freeway stating that drugs are bad for us, and that we should all be drug free. But why do so many people still do drugs even though they know it is illegal and bad for us just like how the Government in Fahrenheit 451 states that books are so bad and traitorous. Based on some surveys, there are about 12.8 million Americans who abused the law by taking drugs this month. The reason why I believe the numbers are so high is because the people who take it know it is illegal, so therefore they get a pleasure out of doing something that is illegal, and yet they know it is bad for their health. But without concern, millions of Americans still abuse the law and take drugs. What is it
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about books that no one wants to own or read? It is after all a creation of mankind, where one can find obtain all sorts of information from it.
“There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing” (Fahrenheit 451). After the old lady stays inside her house and decides to die and get burned along with all her books, people become really shocked and begin to wonder what is it inside the books that makes “a woman stay in a burning house”. People begin to think now, to see what is it that people like to read, what it is to have books, and to eventually think what is it like to read? The same happens in this society today. No one person will try something new until one person tries, or a group of people come together and try it for the first time. As one can see, the citizens are all blinded by what the Government feeds them, and they do not have their own brains to actually make their own decisions, they just go along with the flow.
The novel Fahrenheit 451 really informs us how our future might one day be; controlling and with lack of freedom. In fact, it is happening today at this very moment. The Government, the news, the media, they are all informing us how to life, and most of us are blindly falling into it. We are living our lives they way they want us to live. Ray Bradbury’s novel is about Montag protecting what everybody is willing to
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destroy; The creation of mankind, where the every day normal class citizens do not know who their true identity is or what their purpose to life is. The great novel Fahrenheit 451, yet very controversial, can easily be compared to how the media is controlling our lives today. As humans, I believe we have to do and act on what we believe is right for ourselves and not let the outside sources control our lives.
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Cited Sources
Truffaut, Francois. Fahrenheit 451. Anglo Enterprises. 1966

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Print.