Freinheit 451 Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Freinheit 451 - Term Paper Example The book is an excellent piece that combines enchantment with enlightenment and awakens the imagination of humanity. Fahrenheit 451 is set in the twenty-fourth century and brings up a new environment where the media controls the people, in addition to the problems of overpopulation and censorship. An individual citizen is not readily accepted and the intellectual is seen as an outlaw in that society. In this society, television has taken up the common belief of family ties. The fireman has become an igniter of fire and destroyer of books instead of an insurer against fire and its dangers. Books are seen as evil and illegal because they influence people to think and ask questions about the way things are done in that society. The story begins with an incitement where Montag meets Clarisse McClellan. Montag works as a fireman who burns books for a living. One day as he walks home from work, Clarisse who introduces herself to him approaches him. Clarisse is young, beautiful, and energet ic. She presents herself as an antithesis of anyone that Montag has ever met as she engages in a conversation with him especially in things that Montag has never considered. She is very inquisitive and she ponders about things such as love, happiness and the contents of the books that Montag burns. This character fascinates Montag (Bradbury, 1967). Over the next several days, Montag encounters a series of disturbing events that begin with his wife, Mildred, wanting to commit suicide through swallowing a full bottle of sleeping pills. This is followed by a strange occurrence that he encounters as he responds to an alarm about an old woman who has a stash of hidden books. When he reaches there, the woman stuns him by choosing to be burned along with her books. A few days after this, he learns that young Clarisse has been hit dead by a speeding car. This heightens the dissatisfaction in his life and he begins to find a solution by reading books from the stash that he stole from the fir es he started. When Montag fails to report to work, his manger visits him at his home and explains to him that it is normal for a fireman to wonder what books give and he elucidates how books came to be burned. As Beatty explains, special interest groups and other minority groups laid their objections to books that offended them. Soon, all books were written with intent not to offend any person. He explains that this was not enough and the society as a unit decided to burn books instead of permitting differing opinions from authors. Beatty tells Montag to take 24 hours, read the books, and find out whether they have anything important and then give them off for incineration. This turns Montag into a long and frenzy night of reading (Eller & Touponce, 2004). When he becomes overwhelmed of reading, he turns to his wife for support but his wife prefers television to his company and does not understand why her husband takes the humiliating task of reading the books. When he remembers Pr ofessor Faber, he decided to visit him so that he can help him. Faber tells him that the value of the book is in the awareness of the life in them. He tells Montag that he needs the leisure to read them and the freedom to act upon the ideas of the books and offers to help him read. Faber will contact a printer to reproduce books and Montag will plant them in the residence of firemen to harm the reputation of the profession and destroy censorship. This leads to a completely