Mark Twain's Fahrenheit 451

1134 Words5 Pages
When you see someone in the street, would you help? Everyone says they would, but no one steps up. Like in Fahrenheit 451, the people of our society are too afraid to step up and help. Is that the path this great country is heading down? This world is like the one in Fahrenheit 451 because the inhabitants of this “noble” land lack morales and never express emotion. To start off, there have been very noticeable changes in the way society is. In the days when this country was still a toddler learning to walk, you couldn't walk down the road without people offering to help you carry things, or see a boy scout helping a senior citizen cross the road. Today, that boy scout would push that dinosaur over and then walk away playing on a smartphone.…show more content…
Of course not... right? People that cry are looked at like wimps and people that just want attention. But is that really the way society is tipping towards? Fahrenheit 451 certainly says so. Taking a look at life in the book no one but the odd ducks actually show real emotion. Everyone keeps it bottled up inside, and they don’t understand them. They can’t predict their emotions. When Mrs. Phelps couldn't understand her tears of joy after hearing the poem she thought they were because of, “... poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying” (page 97). Their society has brainwashed them so they don’t even understand their own thoughts. Brainwashing doesn’t just have to be scrubbing your cerebrum with soap and water, it can also be from messages and hints pushing you in a certain direction. For instance, Guy Montage, even with the help of Clarisse, has trouble understanding his emotions. Right after he meets Clarisse he realizes that he, “... was not happy… He wore his happiness like a mask…” (page 9). It takes Montag the whole book to conquer his emotions and he even goes insane, seeing subway people going crazy and screaming at someone who is not there. Is that our fate? In society 2, our emotions are controlled right from the start. Why do you think your parents tell you not to cry over spilled milk? Still, society 1 seems pretty crazy... unless it's not. Are we all suffering like mass hysteria like Montag, holding it in until we burst? Is our race just a bunch of ticking time bombs waiting to detonate one at a time? No one shows emotion so it must be true. Psychology today certainly agrees saying,” Boys are sissies if they show pain, fear… crying”, (www.Psychologytoday.com). On the other side of this crazy flipping coin we call society, emotion is a vital part of everything today. Music is emotion, movies are even displays of emotion (so if Michael Bay’s movies have One billion explosions in them, what are his emotions like?). A
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