Fahrenheit 451, what is it that Beatty, Faber and Granger are trying to say? What is Ray Bradbury trying to say to us? Is he trying to say multiple things, or just one big main idea? The true meaning we may never know, but there can always be opinions and guesses.
It is evident that the author, Ray Bradbury is trying to say a lot in his book, and the characters. Thoughts are put into our minds before we can protest against them.
“It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn’t time to protest, ‘What nonsense’!” (84, Faber’s speech)
It made me think, and I thought hey! That’s true, how many times have we thought that it seemed nearly impossible for a pretty woman to be a secret double agent and have countless family problems (Alias, TV show on abc)? None! How many times have you thought twice when Jennifer Garner thwarts yet another enemy and completes a mission? None! I watch it every week and I have not thought about that until now. You see what TV is doing? Its just rushing conclusions in our minds, and we just go along with it and ooh and ahh when the producers want us to. We’re not thinking about it anymore, we were never thinking about it.
“Colored people don’t like Little black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. (59)”
We’re trying so hard to be happy, but we forget the important parts. We have to face the truth and the ugly history. Why are we burning the books? We’re just trying to be happy, but are we really? Happiness is not something you just get, it’s something that comes to you naturally, and it’s something in a way you earn. But that’s just my definition of happiness, happiness is like an opinion, it means something different to everybody else besides you. Some people feel happy by reading about WWII, some people are saddened by it. Nevertheless, that’s not an excuse to just get rid of it.
TV shows and movies are all about the pretty things, you don’t see much on war and bloodshed. There are movies on it, but it completely ruins it though, the Lieutenants are portrayed by young beautiful people, the enemies are portrayed by young beautiful people, heck even the Generals and Captains are beautiful people! But that’s what we want to see. We don’t want to see the ugly people, or the old. I cannot think of one movie that was on war that had ugly old people in it, no offense to the ugly old people. Maybe there are a few, but did they win Oscars like Saving Private Ryan did? Did millions and billions of people rush to go see it? I think not.
Many times people grimace at bizarre pictures in history books, they laugh and the make fun of their clothing. They do not realize it’s part of history, and history can’t be changed. That’s why some people don’t want to read books anymore; some say they have better things to do, like play video games or just ‘stuff’.
“Then- motion pictures in the early twentieth century. Radio. Television. Things began to have mass. And because they had mass, they became simpler. Once books appealed to a few people, here, there everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths, double, triple quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of pastepudding norm (54).”
That’s what’s happening to us; we don’t read much anymore, books are about some snobby girl that gets a hissy fit when she doesn’t get what she wants, magazines are about ways to dress better and make-up tips, there are still some good magazines and books, but those are like history, full of truth and hardly anybody really wants the truth now.
Registered Members, login
Join now, it's free
Property of EssaySwap.com
