Personal Response Fahrenheit 451

Livia Day

Ms. Yu

ENG 9, Block B

Jan 16, 2023

Personal Response to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Inside the imaginative world crafted by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel placed around Chicago where the people can't think for themselves; consequently, kids run around amusement parks killing one another with giddy delight, and walls inside of houses are live action TVs, called TV parlors. Fahrenheit 451’s protagonist Guy Montag, is a firefighter who burns books for a living. In our world, firefighters help people by putting out fires, however, in Montag's futuristic time, the firefighters burn books to a crisp. Bradbury puts many lessons into his novel, in particular, how mass media has a role in everything, you can see this in the multiple scenes between Montag and his wife,

Mildred is arguably obsessed with the TV parlor, she even thinks as if it is her own family. In a world where no one can think for themselves, you can see how depressed and hollow these people really are, but they don't even realize it. Everybody used to crave knowledge, but due to years of disagreement and fighting the desire to think and know utterly disappears. Their solution; burn all of the books and their issues would disappear, “Montag’s hand closed like a mouth, crushing the book with wild devotion, with an insanity of mindlessness to his chest. The men above were hurling shovels of magazines into the dusty air. They fell like slaughtered birds and the women stood below, like a small girl, among the bodies.” (Bradbury PDF 50 ). As someone who reads quite a lot the role of reading in others lives astounds me. I read almost everyday, so when I hear someone who reads two books a year it appalls me. For others, reading is more of a chore, something that they are forced