Among many others, Milie has ignored all of the signs that clearly show their way of life is not working. It is not until she “saw her own face reflected there, in a mirror instead of a crystal ball…” (152). The fact that Montag’s community ended by war was solely the governments fault. The people in control have created society full of citizens that are incapable of having their own opinions and making change when noticing what is going on around them.
The article “Reasonably Insane: Affects and Crake In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake” by Ariel Koon, details how the characters of the novel are impacted the society that are a part of. The character of Crake is analyzed for his motives to wipeout the human race and how the society he is in pushed him to do it. The first part of the article focuses on the characterization of Crake. To readers, he seems to be neither good nor evil.
Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut and The Pedestrian by Bradbury warn readers about the dangers of conformity and total equality through a loss of individuality in society and the cruelty of a totalitarian government. In today’s society, some countries’ citizens are lucky to have individual freedom. It is a blessing to be able to be whoever you want to be, but conformity and total equality can ruin that. Vonnegut and Bradbury portray this warning in Harrison Bergeron and The Pedestrian by describing societies where citizens aren’t blessed and must live under oppressive governments enforcing conformity and total
This shows how powerful and terrifying the human brain is. The human brain named itself, it has all the power to reason and expound upon how the universe was created but we still don’t entirely understand how it works and that makes us very scared, and that fear makes us dangerous. Society uses the power of the human mind to justify the enslavement of others, not much can be more terrifying. We meddle in other people/countries affairs and cause wars and chaos all for the sake of being the victors, all so we can create truth. But what about that one child who opted out.
In the novel 1984, George Orwell depicts a totalitarian dystopian world in which there is no freedom and the citizens are brainwashed. The Party creates fear through propaganda and strict laws with the goal of controlling every aspect of the citizen’s life to the point where they don’t have a sense of individuality. Winston, the main character, wasn’t as brainwashed as the other citizens. He was aware of all the lies and the way in which the Party controlled the citizens The Party’s main slogan was: “WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
Hia actions reflect to his government. Harrison wanted to overthrow his government because of the way they express themselves in the government. They want to keep everyone equal including the way the people think. Harrison hates that so he wanted to overthrow the government. Equality and his people are already average, people uneducated, people not knowing how their minds process things.
According to Rousseau, the best form of government is a direct democracy (Robison), but since Ralph fails to establish this form of government, the result is the boys falling into corruption and total chaos. Rousseau believes that civil society causes humans to become corrupt. His philosophy is centered upon the idea of “the general will,” which reflects society’s interest in a common good (Younkins). But individual desires can conflict with the general will, and civil society can actually damage the desire for a common good (Bertram). The general will in Lord of the Flies is the need to build shelters, establish a civilization, and most importantly keep the fire going with the ultimate purpose of rescue.
Bradbury’s stories follow a similar genre which is a dystopian feeling where the characters realize what the world has come to be (“Fahrenheit”). Fahrenheit 451, takes place in a dystopia or “... a dehumanizing environment… where the state keeps citizens in thrall be denying them the kinds of positive, useful intellectual stimuli found in books” (Huntington 107). A dystopia is a future where life is appalling. In their attempt to make a perfect future, the government instead created a dystopia where people are destroying their only sense of truth, joy and humanity (Hamblen). Bradbury is trying to convey that, “Dystopian novels show that any attempt at establishing utopia will only make matters much worse” (Dietz).
Vonnegut says that if everyone is equal, unique beauty would be destroyed. Therefore the society would become lifeless and boring, now that creativity is restricted. Vonnegut is also able to demonstrate a dystopian society. In this case, he shows a society where competition is no longer allowed because the government has decided what is "normal" and what is not. In Harrison Bergeron, the lack of freedom is also acknowledged to be one of the main themes.
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 (F451), the government has banned books, but the government is not to blame as it started with the people. The average person did not have the slightest consideration of books, and the people that did were considered snobby and harmful to society because they became much more intelligent than the average person. During the book, our main character Montag is a firefighter, but instead of putting out fires, they create them. They
If we let the government have as much power as they have and even more we are going to lose our rights because once the government starts their big plan to completely over rule us we
Harrison Bergeron According to Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their conscience are defied. In the movie “2081” based off of Kurt Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron” they show Harrison as a figure that looks like Jesus, which creates a theme of purity and innocence. His godly features are shown by his physical features, what he does, what he sees and feels. All of these thing help develop the theme.
The culture of society has generally reflected the wishes and demands of those in power, which has, for ages, leaned towards corruption and self-preservation. Yet, every once in awhile, society is able to rise above those who have control and determine its own fate. This is an uncommon occurrence as these ideas, especially the ones that have enough force to generate a following, are suppressed by those in power and are disregarded by those still under an illusion of contentment. One idea that has been continually brought to the forefront of these conversations is the idea of total equality, a concept that is especially dangerous to society’s puppet masters and seen as a boy crying wolf by the general populace.