I've been reading Fahrenheit 451 for a while, and the big theme that I'm seeing is how technology has taken over. Also how the author thinks that in the future (from when he wrote this) things would be dramatically different. The author perceived people in the future to be against learning, but he thought that they would be into technology. To me, these two things are very similar. If a person couldn't learn something because everyone had to be equal, how would someone create the things in the book, for example the wall tv's or the buds for Mildred's ears. Someone who's smart had to come up with the ideas, unless those things wouldn't have been invented. If everyone was forced to learn the same things, no one would teach anyone anything. I learn new things from my friends everyday. They may not be relevant to my life, but they're still facts like "how long it takes for your brain to realize you're full". I highly doubt that's something that someone in this book would know because everyone knows the exact same information. No one would be able to take the credit of inventing this new technology because everyone would know how to create it.
I think that the best thing about this world is that everyone's different. I don't like how in this book everyone should know the same things. How would you learn anything new then? You wouldn't. The style of "learning" in the book is a bad style because you'll never know what you could. It wouldn't be possible for you to know something more than another person because you're not allowed to. People are supposed to be different for many reasons. Not everyone's supposed to think the same. People should be able to have their own opinions, and they're own style of learning. Not everyone should believe in the same things, this would take away from debates and arguments, which should happen. Debates are a huge part of politics, which are a huge part of our society. If everyone knew the same thing and learned the same things and were supposed to be equal, you would never have a leader.
I'm glad our society didn't turn out this way. I wouldn't have liked to know the same thing as everyone. It wouldn't be right. No one would be unique or different, which is the best part of being a person. No one's the same. Everyone's supposed to be different and think for themselves, not think the same things as everyone.
1 comment:
Katharine - Very interesting. You are illustrating how you are thinking things through in the novel. I agree that our world is great because of how different every one is. Bradbury seems to be making a point about how destructive it can be when people (governments or other groups) try to impose rules or regulations that minimizes our differences.
The next step for you is to go back into the text and try to figure out just what Bradbury is warning us about in our world. I society is not exactly like this, but there are some similarities. What are they? How are they evident even today, more than 50 years after the novel was written?
Keep reading. Keep thinking...
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