User:Cameronhinkel2

Fahrenheit 451

The nature of science fiction has always been thus: no matter how far ahead authors try to think, they are always trapped in their own times. Elements of their books will invariably look dated from the moment they are published. What you're left with is one of the most shockingly prescient dystopias ever written — a far more accurate portrayal of our present problems than 1984 or anything in the works of Philip K Dick. The most important thing to know about Fahrenheit 451 is that it is explicitly not about government censorship. The firemen aren't burning books on the orders of some shadowy Big Brother. They're doing it, protagonist Guy Montag is told, because society as a whole turned away from the scary cacophony of knowledge, from the terror of differing opinions and the burden of having to choose between them, from deep and troubling thoughts. We turned away from literature and towards vapid reality television and radio shows, the book says. We spurned any kind of poetry (Montag's wife Millie slams Matthew Arnold's classic Dover Beach as depressing and "disgusting") and preferred to listen to the noise of our cars as they speed across the landscape at 100 mph. Even when Guy wants to read his stolen books, he can't, because the ubiquitous ads drown out his thoughts.

In Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In this world firemen start fires rather than putting them out, coincidentally, and the people in this society do not spend time with themselves. These people also do not read books, they do not think independently, and never have any meaningful conversations with other people. Instead they just drive really fast and watch excessive amounts of television. Eventually throughout the book Montag meets a young girl who opens up his eyes and his mind. Her unusual love for nature and asking questions opens Montag up to the consciousness of people before all the books were banned. A series of events take place that leaves Montag on the run from the police and he escapes this Mechanical Hound that was hunting him down by jumping in a river. He drifts downstream and follows abandoned railroad tracks where he eventually finds a group of renegades called "The Book People." Here he finds out that these people have memorized great works in literature and philosophy, and the mission these people are on is to help mankind after the aftermath of the oncoming war. The city Montag was living in is completely destroyed and he and The Book People set off to search for survivors and rebuild civilization.