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LITR 4632: Literature of
the Future Kimberly
Kimmel FAHRENHEIT
451 by
Ray Bradbury PRIMARY
OBJECTIVE:
1[a].
To identify and describe an apocalyptic narrative that humans tell about
the future. INTRODUCTION:
Guy
Montag was a fireman in a futuristic American city where firemen start
fires instead of putting them out. Montag
had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned his calling…not
until he met a 17-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not
afraid. Then Montag visits Faber,
an old English professor, who tells him the value of books and of a future in
which people could think. Suddenly
Montag realized what he had to do... Section
1
– The Hearth and the Salamander – The hearth represents warmth for the home;
the salamander is an official symbol of firemen (because of ancient beliefs that
it lives in fire and is unaffected by flames). Section
2
– The Sieve and the Sand – Sand symbolizes the truth Montag seeks, and the
sieve the human mind seeking truths that remain elusive and impossible to grasp. Section
3
– Burning Bright – Fire symbolizes the destruction of the current society
and paves the way for the rebirth of a new civilization.
EXCERPT:
“…But the public, knowing
what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive.
And the three-dimensional sex magazines, of course.
There you have it, Montag. It
didn’t come from the Government down. There
was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!
Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick,
thank God”…. “Yes, but what about the firemen, then?” asked Montag.
“Ah.” Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe.
“What more easily explained and natural?
With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers,
grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers,
and imaginative creators, the word ‘intellectual’, of course, became the
swear word it deserved to be. You
always dread the unfamiliar. Surely
you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally
‘bright’, did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like
so many leaden idols, hating him. And
wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We
must all be alike. Not everyone
born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man
the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are not mountains to
make them cower, to judge themselves against.
So! A book is a loaded gun
in the house next door. Burn it.
Take the shot from the weapon. Breach
man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?
Me? I won’t stomach them
for a minute. 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, the focus of our
understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges,
and executors. That’s you, Montag,
and that’s me.” QUESTIONS:
Discussion
Notes Question 1: What
is ultimately responsible for a society’s downfall, censorship of books, or
the books themselves? Sandy: I don’t believe in censorship.
When a person feels they can decide what people think or read,
repercussions occur. We should be
able to read and write what we wish and let others accept that willingly. Corrie:
That brings in what is morally acceptable or not.
There has to be a balance. We have to have some sort of censorship to let
bad things not get out of control. Sandy:
Choosing censorship makes us lose control over it.
Beaureaucrats make the decisions, even if they are not knowledgeable in
those aspects. There can’t be a
standard of good or bad books. Jennifer:
People are hoarding books, so those books could not be censored anyway.
We find ways around laws. Jennifer:
I’m against censorship. How
would we ever decide what should or should not be censored?
I haven’t seen anything good come out of censorship, although I think
porn would be better off being censored. Sandy:
How far do we let that go, though? Whose definition of porn are we
censoring? We can’t set limits in
that, so censorship will not work. Susie:
You don’t have to read porno if you do not want to, so don’t buy it
if you don’t want it. Besides,
sometimes porn is good because it keeps would-be rapists off the streets. Corrie:
There are laws against child porno, though, so where do we set the
limits? We are human and we screw
up. There have to be set
boundaries. Question 2: How
would an alien describe one of our books to another alien?
Is it possible that there are “books” of knowledge on other planets
or galaxies? What form and purpose would they have? Susie:
I’ve always seen aliens with information already in their heads, not in
books-knowledge stored in memory. Jonathan:
There has to be a foundation. To
build a society, there has to be a method to store information.
Books are our way. Aliens
may have other ways- computers? Downloading straight into your head? Dr. White:
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to read with your eyes shut-a
transparent lid? Then you could
read during boring classes or other events you didn’t want to be a part of. Kathy:
There are electronic downloads of books you can carry around with you.
Aliens may not be able to discern from what is real or not real. Sara:
Some humans have a hard enough time understanding books and why we read
them. I can just imagine an
aliens’ reaction to a book. Jonathan:
Books with aliens in them have the aliens with no conception of lying.
So, they may not understand books and different themes and types of
books. Dr. White:
Even cross-culturally, we don’t understand other culture’s types of
books-They are “alien” to us.
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