Ignorance In Fahrenheit 451

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Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a futuristic society where ignorance truly is bliss. In an era where information is delivered in bite size chunks at lightning speeds no citizen has the desire to sit down and read a novel. "Speed up the film, Montag, quick... Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! (pg. 52)” Patience and critical thinking are values that are lost in this society of mass consumption. In order to keep its citizens tamed and meek the government insures that all books are burned. This is acceptable to the citizens, since books are always targeting a specific race, religious group, or society. People stopped reading since most books are the subject of controversy, always starting some sort of argument with another social group. It is simpler for everyone to just consume the imagery the mass media creates of a perfectly happy and ordered world with no conflict. “So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless (pg. 83).” On the contrary, Mildred and everyone else should read since novels promote critical thinking in this anti intellectual society. Novels allow readers to form their own opinions on various controversial issues; they provide various different perspectives on these issues.
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