Fahrenheit 451: Question 8 (Final Summer Blog)

Finally, the moment we’ve (okay, so it was mostly me) have all been waiting for. It’s time for blog number fifty! The final blog for the summer of 2011.

So, let’s get down to business. Once again, like I mentioned a couple of blog posts back when I answered question number five, this book has no real historical facts and events in it because it was set in the future, which could be the present years, but there was most defiantly no historical facts beyond the things like billboards were twenty feet long and firemen put out fires not stop them. Those are basic facts though, so I tend not to characterize those as significant facts.

I think that Bradbury believed that people should argue, discuss, disagree; anything to keep the thought processes going on something that matters. This is because when Captain Beatty was talking to Guy about why things were like they were he said “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information” (Bradbury 61). He is presenting a startling future, and at the heart of it all, is a feeling that people should just do whatever makes them feel happy, as long as they don’t start to think and voice ideas that conflict other ideas or thoughts that would lead to someone being unhappy worrying about whether or not he is right on a certain topic. What Bradbury is trying to say is that debate is good, it keeps people from becoming senseless and only worry about happiness at the expense at the rest of the world.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.