Sections
in this document:
Introduction
- A disclaimer about the summary
Summary
- A summary of the book
Application
- How the book predicted today's society
The book Fahrenheit
451, by Ray Bradbury, deserves more space than is allotted here to
adequately analyze it. I am not attempting to explain the whole book, all of Mr.
Bradbury's points and purposes, or even necessarily his main point. For this
application, however, this summary should suffice.
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Mr. Bradbury forsees a time when
firemen are used to start fires, instead of stop them. They are used for the
opposite of their original intention. In the book, it is the government that
decrees that all books (with an emphasis on classic literature in the story),
should not exist. So the firemen do their job of starting fires to eradicate the
illegal novels and such.
The government does make the law that owning or
reading a book is illegal. The point is made, in the history lesson by the local
chief fireman, that the government did not truly originate the ban of books.
Society, by progressing to a faster pace of life, and with material possessions
becoming bigger, better, faster, and brighter, placed less emphasis on things
that took time (namely books). It was the culture that prized the shallow
aspects of life, and discarded the meaningful ones. The government merely
followed society's whims in order to keep the people happy.
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When Mr. Bradbury wrote the
book, he did not know how the future would unfold. Back when he wrote the story,
and still today, the concept of firemen's starting fires to burn books is such a
contrast to the way things actually are.
Mr. Bradbury's basic concept
was correct, but he used the wrong profession. Back when the book was written,
and for as long as people existed before that, doctors were used to heal people,
to enable them to live longer. Recently, the role of the doctor has begun to
change. Also, it did not start to change because of the government. Once
individual people, then the society, thought it was what they wanted, and what
was good, then the government became involved in order to secure the whims of
the people.
As in the book, the change is born from people's tending
toward the shallow and easier ways of life. If a pregnancy occurs (note the
nice, neutral tone of that statement. However, in real life, pregnancies do not
just occur. They happen as the result of a conscious act, and two people are
responsible for that.), then the societal way to handle it is to have a doctor
perform an abortion. In doing that, the doctor no longer is a healer, but just
the opposite. Also note that societal way means the quick and easy
way to keep life going as usual, without having to think about anything, and
without causing unhappiness.
The other prominent reversal of a doctor's
role is at the other end of life. The opportunities for elderly and
terminally-ill people who have tired of their life to end it are becoming more
widespread these days. This is a newer issue here in the United States, but is
an established practice in some European countries (and maybe elsewhere as
well). Currently, the ending of peoples' lives by doctors has some opposition by
the government (depending on the situation and method). It remains to be seen
whether the government will follow the fringe of society that recommends killing
people when their quality of life does not meet certain minimum (arbitrary?)
standards.
In the fictional account of the future, the people are told
that firemen had always burned books, never put out fires. It never occurred to
most of them that the past could have been different. Those to whom it did occur
were quickly quieted. May the day never come when the people of the United
States cannot believe that doctors were once used to heal.
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Truth -
Evolution - Children - 451 F
- Straight
Comments are welcome. The e-mail
address is listed at the bottom of the page. Let me know what you thought of the
page, tell me your views, give me an opposing argument to something listed here,
etc.
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TRWStrong@aol.com / 06 Sep.
1999
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