Fahrenheit 451
Could it be possible for mankind to exist in a world without conflict, a world resplendent with ignorance and mindless followers thinking what they are told to think and completing the tasks they were told to do? Apparently so, for the novel Fahrenheit 451 shows a society where every item of conflict, every thought etched into parchment is incinerated to dark, abysmal ashes, for the greater good of the community. Who is to say if censorship should exist or not to the American public, for the decision is solely a matter of judgment? If censorship is permitted, someone would be forced to give their human opinion to describe just how far censorship would go. Can it be deemed moral to make the judgment call to erase pain and suffering from our lexicon of human emotions? To take away pain, sadness, anguish and conflict is an amazing and extreme idea that more often than not will end up right where it originated from, deep in the dark, demented mind of a society that is desperate to keep the status quo. Guy Montag’s life is based around these queries, and slowly he’s uncovered their meaning, one at a time until he’s ascertained his own life’s meaning. Montag was programmed by his outside world to stop making up his own mind for himself, and more on following sightlessly, questioning nothing, and doing all that was asked. At the inception of the story Montag was clearly used to the system of burning books, he himself admitted, “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed (3).” Montag, as well as every other mature adult in this city, has been brainwashed by years of repetitive material that eventually got under his skin and into his fragile, shapeable psyche.