Fahrenheit 451
 

5/24/04
Mildred is worried about being caught with books because the punishment for having books is so severe. This tells me that her character is afraid of trying something new that may be beneficial to them or society.
According to Bradbury, international relations in the future will be very strained and full of hate for one another. War will be short, 48 hours being the shortest, and will take many lives, as well as the wars being nuclear.
The title of Part Two, The Sieve and the Sand, refers to Montag’s struggle. It is compared to a day when he tried to fill a sieve with sand, but obviously couldn’t. His struggle with the books and the other people is very similar, he tries but attains nothing.
The dentifrice commercial is important because the women think it is more important than the revolutionary theories of Montag. The commercial exemplifies that society has become a drone army incapable of thinking for themselves.
Faber tells Montag’s that books are not real, and that is why they are great. The people are moved from the real world to the imaginary world of the character. They then think on their own which is bad because it is an individual action.
Faber says the three things missing from society are quality, leisure time and the right to carry out actions learned from the other two. The society of 451 is lacking quality of individual life, they have little leisure time, and there are too many rules to do such outrageous things learned from books.
Faber defines the job of firemen as destroyers of the good things in books. Beatty describes them as extinguishers of the bad things found in all books.
Faber’s statement about a cage and denying your squirrel foreshadow that the firemen will be going to Montag’s house to destroy life as he knows it, with books.
Faber gives Montag a small seashell for his ear that has a two way radio for Faber to listen and give Montag advice.
The parlor women are drones of the 451 society. Their views on everything are so outrageously stupid they don’t make sense, i.e. the children and their husbands. The women have no concerns unless it deals with the TV or themselves.
Montag takes a book into the parlor because he is tired of the drone society and wants to have an actual intelligent conversation.
Once the Sea of Faith has retreated melancholy is left behind on the land. In 451 things that are representative of the lifeless melancholy waters are the lack of thinking and reason in the society.
The women react by crying and becoming very upset. They want to leave immediately and never return to Montag and Mildred’s home.
Their reaction supports Beatty’s explanation of why literature of power had to be destroyed because it sparked a reaction in the women and made them think. Society of this time and age doesn’t want you to think.