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Individuality In Fahrenheit 451 Essay

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Montag is forced to explore his own meaning of individuality In a society of followers . When he visits Professor Faber at his home. He begs Faber, “I want you to teach me how to understand what I read,” . Montag is capable of physically reading out words, but he is unable to put any meaning or emotion behind the texts he reads. Montag desperately wishes too understand and think about the texts. However Montag is unable to complete to contemplate original and uninfluenced thoughts. Faber implores Montag to look inwards unto himself for this book in itself is just an inanimate object and that, ‘“the magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us,”. The stress is placed on the individual …show more content…

The topic of thinking freely was explored as a major theme in the dystopian fiction “1984”. In this novel George Orwell writes of a world where one cannot even think freely, if you think an illegal thought the “thought police” will come and arrest you for a “thought crime”. It could be said that thoughts are for “1984” what books are in “Fahrenheit 451”, both are used as an outlet to express themselves but if found carrying out those activities you would be arrested. Montag struggles with conjuring up with original thoughts because he has never before had an outlet through which to reflect upon his own relationship with himself, he has never truly been himself. Montag’s mental loss of freedom can be contrasted with Caliban’s physical entrapment in “The Tempest”. Caliban's desire to be free is one that is based around physical beings. He wants the spirits to stop tormenting him and he wants to be free of the physical slavery that he is forced to do. Montag just wants to be free in his mind. Additionally, Caliban was once free and so has a better idea of what he wants. Montag has never in his life been free and so his desire is less focused and more

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