In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses the life of Guy Montag, a fireman in a near future dystopia, to make an argument against mindless conformity and blissful ignorance. In Bradbury’s world, the firemen that Montag is a part of create fires to burn books instead of putting out fires. By burning books, the firemen eliminate anything that might be controversial and make people think, thus creating a conforming population that never live a full life.
Montag is part of this population for nearly 30 years of his life, until he meets a young girl, Clarisse, who makes him think. And the more he thinks, the more he realizes how no one thinks. Upon making this realization, Montag does the opposite of what he is supposed to; he begins to read. The more he reads and the more he thinks, the more he sees how the utopia he thought he lived in, is anything but. Montag then makes an escape from this society that has banished him because he has tried to gain true happiness through knowledge. This is the main point that Bradbury is trying to make through the book; the only solution to conformity and ignorance is knowledge because it provides things that the society can not offer: perspective on life, the difference between good and evil, and how the world works.
The society that Montag lives in is afraid of knowledge because they do not know that it can offer them more than they have. The society then uses their power of being the majority to suppress the truth and knowledge that they fear. After Montag’s lecture about Beatty’s dream, Faber talks to him through the special two-way seashell radio and explains the hold that the majority has: “But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh God, the terrible tyranny of the majority” (108).
Faber explains to Montag that since the majority does not want the knowledge or truth, then no one will gain knowledge or truth because of the power possessed by the majority. If the majority could learn of the great things held in knowledge and truth, then the society would no longer be the dystopia that it is.
The problem that this dystopian society faces by continuing to live in ignorance is the fact that their ignorance is leading them to their own demise. Faber explains the society’s path to Montag shortly after Montag had extricated himself from the society’s trajectory of doom: “Pity, Montag, pity. Don’t haggle and nag them; you were so recently of them yourself. They are so confident that they will run on forever.
But they won’t run on. They don’t know that this is all one huge big blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that someday it’ll have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fir, as you saw it” (103). Montag learns from Faber what ignorance will do to those who embrace it. He learns that the ignorance that used to bring him “happiness” is actually pulling the society towards it’s downfall, and he also begins to realize that the only solution is the knowledge found in books.
The society in Fahrenheit 451 shuns the knowledge found in books in turn for the “knowledge” found in facts. They shy away from true knowledge because true knowledge requires people to think, and when someone thinks, there is a chance that they might think about something sad. As a leading force for the society’s destruction of true knowledge, Beatty explains to Montag the society’s want for immediate satisfaction and not something that may provide true happiness because it brings about sadness in the immediate moments: “Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy . . . But I don’t care. I just like solid entertainment” (61).
Beatty explains to Montag the society’s need of immediate gratification. They don’t want the joy that comes with knowledge because the joy also comes with sadness. People ignore the truth found in knowledge because it also brings about sadness, but the knowledge would actually bring them out of the false happiness the society finds in conformity and cheap thrills.
As Montag first starts to delve into books, he starts to see the knowledge that they provide and the provisions that come from knowledge. When he and Mildred first start looking through the books he has stolen over the years, Montag begins to understand the knowledge that books may contain: “Do you know why? I don’t, that’s sure? Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn mistakes! I don’t hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it. God, Millie, don’t you see? An hour a day, two hours, with these books, and maybe . . .” (74).
Here Montag starts to see how books can provide information on life, how the world works, and good and evil. He also begins to see how this knowledge could bring the society out of the blind conformity it is in. If he can show the rest of society what he has just begun to see, then the society may be able to crawl out of their conformity and ignorance.
Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses his world to show what books provide that society can not offer; knowledge. Knowledge then guides people out of the ignorance and conformity that the society in Fahrenheit 451 encourages and even demands as the majority. The fear of any discomfort that knowledge might bring is the cause for the society’s actions in trying to eliminate it; however, because they never take time to look past the discomfort and see the happiness that knowledge does provide, they stay in their ignorance and experience their false happiness. Therefore, knowledge is what brings people out of ignorance and into the light where they may be able to find true happiness for themselves.
Reference: https://jgdb.com/essays/fahrenheit-451-guy-montag-and-people-who-influenced-him
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