This future society wants its citizens to be equally intelligent. The lack of knowledge within a society is a bothersome aspect of the novel Fahrenheit 451. Books give people the knowledge to think about their future. No matter what kind of books-fairy tales, biographies, or bibles- without knowledge, it creates conflicts without a reasonable resolution. Though most people in this society don’t notice their lack of knowledge, those who have books do. Citizens in this future society found books offensive, so the firemen burn books to make equality as intelligence, now no one feels outsmarted. With a non-reading society is a non-thinking society. Without thinking; they won’t have any knowledge and won’t understand what happened in the past to accomplish a better future. “There was a silly bird called a phoenix…., every few hundred years he built a pyre and burn himself up…But every few hundred years he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we got one thing the Phoenix never had.” (Bradbury 162) The Phoenix symbolizes the citizens in this society. They keep starting conflicts, such as war, but they never stop to start another one.
The Phoenix kept coming back and repeats what he’s always done, just like these citizens. But they have one thing the Phoenix didn’t have; knowledge from books. With history books, they can understand why they keep having wars and put an end to it, but they can’t and won’t. Without the knowledge from books, how will they ever find a resolution to their conflicts? Doesn’t it just bother you to have a mindless world? If they feel outsmarted, just push them to thrive for the best. With equality how can anyone feel they’ve achieved something if they’re all equally intelligent. The lack of knowledge within a society is a bothersome aspect of the novel Fahrenheit 451. Fahrenheit 451 Literary Analysis Essay Test — Part II Throughout the novel Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag faces many conflicts, this includes man vs. man, man vs self but most importantly, man vs. society. But all of these conflicts are all involved together by a certain reason the reader can notice. In this future society, the government has banned books. Books make people feel outsmarted so, they ban them to represent equality, now everyone feels they’ve accomplished something great. These citizens are connected through technology, not with each other.
One day when he meets an odd girl named Clarisse he begins to identify who he is. Clarisse is not normal for this time period. She wants to understand the past and be herself, she doesn’t want to watch TV all day or murder people for fun. Having these “different” features classifies her as odd. Montag thinks about why the world is the way it is. The government controls how each citizen plays a role in this society. Montag as a firefighter has to burn these books the people find to provide happiness to others. When Clarisse goes missing, Montag misses having a person seeing things in their un-brainwashed perspective. He thinks there should be more people like Clarisse. Montag believes that if people read books they would be more like her. Now Montag is fighting society to get people to read books again, even though it’s breaking the law. This is Montag’s major conflict of him versus the society now he’s seen as a threat to the country.
Part of Montag’s job is to burn books that people have hidden in their houses’. In a particular scene when Montag has to burn an old ladies books, she refuses to leave her burned house, and rather die with them. Montag questions “There must be something in books things we can’t imagine to make a woman stay in a burning house, there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”(Montag pg 51) He realizes there must be something in books that resemble great importance to make someone take its own life. Montag doesn’t quite understand why he’s a fireman and his purpose in life. Montag is going against himself to understand the true meaning of life. Captain Beatty, Montag’s boss, knows that Montag is up to something. We can understand that Beatty doesn’t want anybody to interfere with the governments’ laws. Beatty is well educated and can recite about anything from any book, even though his job is to abolish them.
The reader can infer he wants to be the only knowledgeable, smart person in this community. Beatty challenges Montag multiple of times and attempts to convince him that literature is useless and should be destroyed. After Mildred, Montag’s wife turns Montag into the fire department to get his book burned, Captain Beatty attempts to arrest Montag after making him burn his home. Montag murders Captain Beatty in order to escape, now Montag has become an enemy of the state. Throughout the novel, Montag faces many conflicts. These are not all the conflicts he faces but is the most reoccurring thoughts and challenges throughout the novel. All of these conflicts are all related by one thing, and that thing is the banning of books or just books in general. If the government hasn’t banned books the world would have reasonable resolutions and everyone could be happy. Without the banning of books, Clarisse wouldn’t seem as odd to the community and Montag wouldn’t wish there were more people like her, people would naturally be like her-able to speak their own mind. These citizens could have resolutions to these conflicts. The banning of books is a major conflict for this society.