In any society, it is inevitable to come across “the terrible tyranny of the majority,” to quote Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Whenever the majority of a society is given power and control over the minority, the result will be injustice. America is not exempt from this standard; as a variety of cultures and races have flowed into the country over the decades, America has become a truly multicultural society, though the minorities of this “salad bowl” population face ongoing mistreatment by their white so-called “superiors.” In essence, living in American society negatively impacts people with distinct cultural backgrounds, from being blatantly discriminated against, to being forced to abandon their culture for the sake of assimilation, to …show more content…
Living as a Chinese-American, the narrator had to take on American attributes in order to be accepted -- for example, while normal Chinese women spoke with strong and assertive voices, the narrator adopted a whisper in order to appear “American-feminine.”(1) As a result, however, her shy demeanor caused her to be an unpopular outcast. She saw herself in another Chinese-American girl at her school, as they had certain, negative similarities. “I hated the younger sister, the quiet one. I hated her when she was the last chosen for her team and I, the last chosen for my team. I hated her for her China doll hair cut.”(1) Both the narrator and the girl chose to conform to American standards and made themselves “feminine”; relating the girl’s quiet nature to her own, the narrator hated her for it. ““If you don’t talk, you can’t have a personality. You’ll have no personality and no hair. You’ve got to let people know you have a personality and a brain...Nobody’s going to notice you.””(2) While she wanted to be quiet and feminine, as American standards encouraged her to be, she also hated the fact that she wasn’t strong or bossy like normal Chinese girls - one part of her only wanted to fit in with the “ghosts”, or the white people, while the other part of her hated the fact that her assimilation to America caused her to lose her voice and personality. As a Chinese-American, growing up in a biased society where she would be judged for both trying to assimilate and for keeping her cultural personality alive made the narrator become caught between two separate identities, which would tangle her in a web of self-hatred and despair -- in other words, being raised in America certainly had a bad influence over her life, her happiness, and her
Trying To Fit... These days we rarely see a group of people from different races hanging out together. It’s always a race that determines who are our friends and the first ones we reach out to. This problem is created either by nature or by the wrong household understanding.
The novel Fahrenheit 451 is a great example of assimilation. It shows the country being forced to adapt to another culture of not reading or owning any sort of book. From only the first page or two, you get a glimpse into the town that Guy Montag, the main character, lives in. The way that Montag describes his town portrays it to be more gloomy and dark; and lacking any sort of joy or happiness.
Wrought in the imaginations of a number of science fiction authors, such as Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, comes the iconic embodiment of the unknown, the alien. Crafting the notion of a human being coming face-to-face with a hostile, inhuman being became a tool in the early science fiction writer’s cache. The term inhuman, according to philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard, refers to the dehumanizing effects of technology in society as well as the societal frameworks’ promotion of suitable collective behavior while seeking to repress of the rest of what lies within humanity (2). Both of Lyotard’s definitions appear in science fiction in various forms such as androids and artificial intelligence as in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot short story collection, or the fictional societies that attempted to reform man in a certain framework as in the work of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
In Fahrenheit 451 distraction and ignorance are hallmarks of the culture in which Montag lives. Montag’s culture encourages conformity and everyone acting in the same mindless ways. Self-expression is frowned deeply upon, and anyone who thinks for themselves is thought of as “weird” and “odd.” Mindless entertainment and thoughtless lifestyles are considered normal, and anyone who dares to think for themselves or question the status quo is deemed a threat to society, as they may cause others to face the difficult questions their society is protecting them from. Montag’s society is organized to snuff out personal thought and opinion, exactly the things Montag searches for to find answers to the very questions his society condemns.
Everyone struggles at some point with how they want to be seen in the world. In the novel American Born Chinese written by Gene Leun Yang develops a fictional story with Jin Wang as the main Character. Jin struggles with his identity after moving from Chinatown to the suburbs. As a result of the American and Chinese cultures colliding, Jin Wang undergoes both physical and internal changes because he wants to fit in with everyone else. One type of change Jin Wang made after colliding with American culture is internal changes.
People who travel abroad seem to enjoy sending back reports on what people are like in various countries they visit. A variety of national stereotypes is part and parcel of popular knowledge. Italians are said to be "volatile," Germans "hard-working," the Dutch "clean," the Swiss "neat," the English "reserved," and so on. The habit of making generalizations about national groups is not a modern invention. Byzantine war manuals contain careful notes on the department of foreign populations, and Americans still recognize themselves in the brilliant national portrait drawn by Alexis de Tocqueville more than 100 years ago.
People can rely on literacy and social awareness to help them be better aware and more thoughtful. But when people have neither of these skills it can harm the view they have of their surroundings. Fahrenheit 451 is an example of what would happen if social awareness and literacy were looked down on. Over time in the society where everything takes place in, not many are socially aware or can read, resulting to people going to great lengths for their beliefs and wants that they don 't really think through. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows that literacy and social awareness are important for society through the use of characterization and symbolism in the story.
Personalities in Characters Everyone has certain characteristics which makes them who they are. Being funny, intelligence, or ignorant are a few. This also applies to book characters. Many of the characters from Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, have different personalities such as knowledge and ignorance.
Modernization in Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury's “Fahrenheit 451” is a novel that depicts a dystopian society where technology is exceedingly advanced and books have been prohibited by a totalitarian regime that keeps its citizens from independent thinking. The succession of technology begins to suppress the human experience; relations and the transmission of ideas between individuals has ceased. Technology has ascended over this society and menaces its very existence. Bradbury portrays the negative impact that technology has in this godforsaken society, through his utilization of three fundamental literary elements: setting, character, and symbol. The novel takes place in a futuristic society with an apparently incredible aura since technology has altered society into an immersive multimedia.
Have you ever thought about the future of our society? Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 trying to predict what our future may look like. He wrote about what may happen to our society if we don’t stop certain ideas and cultures, we will start destroying ourselves. The society is at war with another country and the government controls people’s life. Fahrenheit 451 has a unique culture, interesting characters, and important themes.
The definition of what it means to be human has been constantly changed and revised over the years. But, the one thing that has stayed constant is that members of the human race have the power of free thought, understand the meaning of life, have a sense of mortality, and an understanding of time, which in essence makes them human. These individual freedoms cannot last in a society that promotes conformity and mindlessness. In a civilization, when all of the people act exactly the same way, have the same thoughts, and all of the thoughts that they have are about trivial matters, the population is living as dehumanized beings. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a major theme is that conformity leads to dehumanization.
As new electronics are being invented, our society gradually becomes more addicted as the days pass. People become reliant on technology and find themselves unable to connect with others and the outside world. Alienation plays a major role in Fahrenheit 451 as Bradbury expresses this theme through the characters, Montag’s society, and how it occurs and affects people in reality. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury establishes the theme of alienation through the characters.
While reading the story, you can tell in the narrators’ tone that she feels rejected and excluded. She is not happy and I’m sure, just like her family, she wonders “why her?” She is rejected and never accepted for who she really is. She is different. She’s not like anyone else
In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the author builds up the subject of distance through the primary characters Clarisse, Montag, and his significant other Mildred. In result, alienation causes their destruction as the plot progresses. Alienation is passed on through the fundamental character Montag. This is shown by the negative feelings he has towards social ways. He found that his general public has "everything they need to be happy, but they aren't happy" and that "somethings missing" from life in his community.
Part 1: The Social Commentary and Style within Fahrenheit 451 In Fahrenheit 451, social commentary is heavily portrayed throughout the entire book. Bradbury wrote this book in the early fifties when the world was still recovering from World War 2. Because he had lived through that war, a lot the social criticals used in the book relate to that period of time. This was one of the biggest reasons why the idea of censorship became the more repetitive commentary in the book.