Fahrenheit 451 Note cards
"If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none."(Bradbury 39)
In Fahrenheit 451 people don't get options, options cause havoc.
The mechanical hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse (Bradbury 24).
It only think what its trained to think, sort of like the people in this society.
" He made soft sounds. He stumbled toward the bed and shoved the book clumsily under the cold pillow he . He fell into bed and his wife cried out, startled. He lay far across the room fro her, on a winter island by an empty sea."
Montag passed out from shock of what had just occurred with the women who died in the fire with her books.
"How are you suppose to root for a team when you don't even have a program or know the names? For that matter, what color jersey are they wearing as they trot out on the field?" (Bradbury 15)
Montag points out that how can you trust anyone if you don't have a relationship with a single person.
"Then the lights switched back to the land, the helicopters swerved over the city again, as if they had picked up another trail. They were gone. The Hound was gone. Now there was only the cold river and Montag floating in a sudden peacefulness, away from the city and the lights and the chase, away from everything."(Bradbury 55)
When Montag gets to the river he is finally away from the Hound and it symbolizes him getting away from technology.
"He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror." (Bradbury 2)
When Montag looks in the mirror he sees himself as someone you would consider to be a hero.
"He saw himself in her eyes , suspended in two shining drops of bright water, himself dark and tiny, in his fine detail, the lines about his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of amber that might capture and hold him intact." (Bradbury 5)
When the girl looked at Montag she saw a man who was lifeless and when Montag looked in Clarisse's eyes he saw a lively beautiful young women.
The reverend was punished for writing a book entitled The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and Society. In this analogy, the individual is an active part of the whole. It is the individual who, ultimately, must take responsibility for the actions of his or her society by challenging the state should it go against the will of the people." (Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature)
in this society you will be shunned for being eccentric, they believe everyone should be the same.
"We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought "(Bradbury 59)
Beatty is explaining to Montag how Being a firemen is so important because they keep society structured.
" Don't let the torent of melancholy and dear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don't think you realize how important you are, we are, to our happy world as it stands now."
Beatty is saying that freethinking leads to people being unhappy.
Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchant, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy (Bradbury 57).
Beatty is telling Montag that if he just goes along with life not questioning anything he will be fine; but if he does the opposite life will be very difficult for him
"You know the law,' said Beatty. 'Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with each other. You've been locked up here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel' "( Bradbury 35)
Beatty is telling the women that her books are filled with meaning information that is not relevant to their society.
Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against." (Bradbury 50)
Books encourage free thinking so burning books equals no more free thinking
"With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history." (Bradbury 1)
By setting all of the books on fire they are erasing any free thinking that people may believe is still acceptable in society.
"When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else."(Bradbury 21)
Clarisse is pointing out to Montag that he is different than all the other firemen, Montag respects people and listens to what people have to say.
" 'It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not' "(Bradbury 27)
Clarisse telling Montag that school is just a waist of time because it fills your mind with meaningless information.
"White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days (Bradbury 9)".
Clarrisse is telling Montag that people just breeze through life they really don't stop to think about whats really around them
"He took Montag quickly into the bedroom and lifted a picture frame aside, revealing a television screen the size of a postal card. "I always wanted something very small, something I could talk to, something I could blot out with the palm of my hand, if necessary, nothing that could shout me down, nothing monstrous big."(Bradbury 56)
Faber doesn't want technology to take over his way of thinking, so a "small TV" is a way of minimizing that threat.
" I don't talk things, sir,' said Faber. 'I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I'm alive "
Faber is explaining to Montag that books give meaning to life they help us think freely.
"Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord." (Bradbury 38)
Firemen aren't needed for helping people on to keep people inline.
"Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels any more. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily. Can you dance faster than the White Clown, shout louder than 'Mr. Gimmick' and the parlour 'families'? If you can, you'll win your way, Montag. In any event, you're a fool. People are having fun." (Bradbury 45)
Firemen aren't very necessary, unless people have books that need to be burned, and when firemen do sent these homes on fire people show up to watch the house go up in flames; watching a house burn down is entertainment for these citizens.
"There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up.But every time he burnt himself up 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've got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we'll stop making the ******* funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them." (163)
Grager is saying that when you make mistakes you learn from them.
"Individuality is dangerous in the world portrayed in Fahrenheit 451. A totalitarian society, a system wherein almost everything is controlled by the government, demands that individuals conform to the crowd." (Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature)
In Fahrenheit 451 the society believes you should mold your personality to fit into the "social norm".
"The sight of it rushed the men out and down away from the house. Captain Beatty, keeping his dignity, backed slowly through the front door, his pink face burnt and shiny from a thousand fires and night excitements. God, thought Montag, how true! Always at night the alarm comes. Never by day! Is it because the fire is prettier by night? More spectacle, a better show?" (Bradbury 120)
In Fahrenheit 451 they describe flames as beautiful, they see something burning as entertainment in their eyes.
"Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal." (Bradbury 50)
In society everyone to be equal so that there will be no violence.
"Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him." (Bradbury 50)
In society if you were intelligent people did not like you.
"Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take you blood." (Bradbury 14)
In the society Montag lives in no one try's to get to know one another the go day-by-day doing their own thing.
" Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flames." (Bradbury 2)
In this moment Montag is proud of what his job is.
"Fool, thought Montag to himself, you'll give it away. At the last fire, a book of fairy tales, he'd glanced at a single line. "I mean," he said, "in the old days, before homes were completely fireproofed-" Suddenly it seemed a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, "Didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?" (Bradbury 46)
In this moment Montag is questioning what his job use to entail; back then people were fire fighter to help others not to kill others and destroy their property.
"He was not happy. je said these words to himself . he recogonized this as the true state of affairs, he wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way he was asking for it back."
In this moment Montag realizes he is not truly happy and in meeting Clarrisse she has opened up his eyes, he will never be able to convince himself that he is happy.
"With his symbolic helmet number 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black." (Bradbury 1)
In this quote it is describing how Montag knew what was to come when he flicked the igniter to set the house on fire.
"It was pretty silly, quoting poetry around free and easy like that. It was the act of a silly damn snob. Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of all Creation. You think you can walk on water with your books. Well, the world can get by just fine without them. Look where they got you, in slime up to your lip. If I stir the slime with my little finger, you'll drown!" (Bradbury 38)
In this society they don't want anyone to be more intelligent than others; so when the man quoted a line from a poem Beatty was insulted because he felt less intelligent.
"I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always used to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid. My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long time ago when they had things different." (Bradbury 21)
In this world people don't care about other no. People are supposed to be unhappy.
"Sounds fine," said Mrs. Bowles. "I voted last election, same as everyone, and I laid it on the line for President Noble. I think he's one of the nicest-looking men who ever became president." "Oh, but the man they ran against him!" "He wasn't much, was he? Kind of small and homely and he didn't shave too close or comb his hair very well." "What possessed the 'Outs' to run him? You just don't go running a little short man like that against a tall man. Besides, he mumbled. Half the time I couldn't hear a word he said. And the words I did hear I didn't understand!" "Fat, too, and didn't dress to hide it. No wonder the landslide was for Winston Noble. Even their names helped. Compare Winston Noble to Hubert Hoag for ten seconds and you can almost figure the results." (Bradbury 57)
In this world people vote for a president based on his appearance not what he is offering his community.
"I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlor' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid...They'd just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back! (Bradbury 96)."
Instead of interacting through conversation people in this society use TV as a way to communicate.
"We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had special machine built." (Bradbury 13)
Instead of trying to fix the problem of people overdosing the government just made machines as a way to just keep people quiet.
"The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way the girl who was moving there seem fixed to the sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward." (Bradbury 3)
It seemed to be saying that the girl, in Montags eyes is like an angel.
"Someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox. Call if you need us again. Keep her quiet. We got contrasedative in her. She'll wake up hungry. So long."(Bradbury 13)
Just like they said in earlier quote they get overdosing calls all the time, it's not a big deal in society.
"He stood very straight and listened to the person on the dark bed in the completely featureless night. The breath coming out the nostrils was so faint it stirred only furthest fringes of life, a small leaf, a black feather, a single fiber of hair." (Bradbury 10)
Mildred Montags wife is sleeping as if she were lifeless.
"Will you turn the parlour off?" he asked. "That's my family."
Mildred considers TV as her family because Montag and her don't even have a relationship. Mildred spends more time interacting with her TV's than her own husband.
"Her face was like snow-covered island upon which rain might fall, but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but felt no shadow." (Bradbury 11)
Mildred doesn't answer Montag because Mildred is unconscious.
" 'Books aren't people. You read and I look all around, but there isn't anybody!' "(Bradbury 65)
Mildred expressing how she doesn't see the importance of books because books aren't people.
"No. The same girl. McClellen. McCellen. Run over by a car. Four days ago. I'm not sure. But I think she's dead. The family moved out anyway. I don't know. But I think she's dead." "You're not sure!"
Mildred is telling Montag that Clarisse is dead as if a teenager dying is no big deal.
"For it would be dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image and it was suddenly so very strong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near silly empty women, while the hungry snake made her still more empty. " (Bradbury 39)
Montag admits that he would not cry if his wife died he would only cry at the thought of not crying because of her death; this shows how awful their relationship is.
"Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopey you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you. Heck, she said, "what would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for".... All right if you say so." (Bradbury 17)
Montag confronts Mildred about overdosing and she denies doing it and instead of getting Mildred help Montag just drops the conversation.
"Montag walked to the kitchen and threw the book down. "Montag," he said, "you're really stupid. Where do we go from here? Do we turn the books in, forget it?" He opened the book to read over Mildred's laughter. Poor Millie, he thought. Poor Montag, it's mud to you, too. But where do you get help, where do you find a teacher this late?"(Bradbury 65)
Montag doesn't have the strength to rebel alone and always looks for an accomplice.
"I don't want to change sides and just be told what to do. There's no reason to change if I do that." "You're wise already!"
Montag doesn't want to have to always listen to what people tell him is right or wrong, good or bad he wants to be able to make his own decisions.
"Two moonstones looked up at him in the light of his small hand-held fire; two pale moonstones buried in a creek of clear water over which the life of the world ran, not touching them." (Bradbury 11)
Montag found two of Mildred's sleeping pills on the floor.
"So, with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air, he felt his way toward his open, separate, and therefore cold bed." (Bradbury 10)
Montag is emphasizing the fact that his wife and him don't have a good relationship by saying they don't share a bed.
"Go home." Montag fixed his eyes upon her, quietly. "Go home and think of your first husband divorced and your second husband killed in a jet and your third husband blowing his brains out, go home and think of the dozen abortions you've had, go home and think of that and your damn Caesarian sections, too, and your children who hate your guts! Go home and think how it all happened and what did you ever do to stop it? Go home, go home!" he yelled. "Before I knock you down and kick you out the door." (Bradbury 101).
Montag is furious with the lack of compassion people have for their actions, wives husbands die, they kill their own children and they have no remorse for their actions.
" I feel I've known you so many years?" " Because I like you, " she said, "I don't want anything from you . And because we know each other."
Montag is not use to having a relationship with someone who doesn't want anything from him; his wife is always asking him for money to put toward her TV collection.
"You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow." He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other. "
Montag is realizes that he doesn't truly know who he is anymore; Clarisse has opened his eyes to be able to view the world very differently.
Withou turning on the light he imagined how his rooom would look. His wife stretched on the bed, uncovered and cold like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb... Mildred has not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for third time." (Bradbury 10)
Montag is realizing how meaningless his life is, and how he does not have a relationship with his wife.
"We can't do anything. We can't burn these. I want to look at them, at least look at them once. Then if what the Captain says is true, we'll burn them together We've got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we're in such a mess. We're heading right for the cliff, Millie. God, I don't want to go over. This isn't going to be easy. We haven't anything to go on, but maybe we can piece it out and figure it and help each other." (Bradbury 66)
Montag is trying to show Mildred the importance of books and that, there's more to life than she thinks.
" He felt he was one of the creatures electronically inserted between the slots of the phono-color walls, speaking, but the speech not piercing the crystal barrier. He could only pantomime, hoping she would turn his way and see him. They could not touch through the glass.
Montag is trying to talk to Mildred but no matter what he says nothing is changing how she feels or acts.
"Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people's heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silverfish, rust and dry-rot, and men with matches. The world was full of burning of all types and sizes. Now the guild of the asbestos weaver must open shop very soon. ( Bradbury 143)
Montag is willing to risk everything for what he believes is right.
"He opened his mouth and let their shriek come down and out between his bared teeth. The house shook. The flare went out in his hand. The moonstones vanished. He felt his hand plunge toward the telephone." (Bradbury11)
Montag is worried about Mildred in this moment and called the Emergency hospital.
" The small crystal bottle of sleeping tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare." (Bradbury 11)
Montag realizes that Mildred has taken all of her sleeping pills that earlier that day was full.
"Wasn't there an old joke about the wife who talked to much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran out to the nearest store and telephoned her to ask what was for dinner? Well then, why didn't he buy himself an audio-Seashell broadcasting station and talk to his wife late at night, murmur, whisper, shout, scream, yell. But what would he whisper, what would he yell? What could he say?" (Bradbury 39)
Montag wants to communicate with his wife but even if he were given the opportunity, he wouldn't even to what to say.
"Let me alone," said Mildred. "I didn't do anything." "Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?" (Bradbury 37)
Montag wants to feel some sort of emotion in his life weather it be bad or good, he just wants to feel alive.
"Nobody listens any more. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read." (Bradbury 78)
Montag wants to use books as a way to communicate with others.
" The blood stream I this women's was new and it seemed to have done a new thing to her. Her cheeks were very pink and her lips were very fresh and full of color and they looked soft and relaxed. Someone else's blood there. If only someone else's flesh and brain and memory."(Bradbury 14)
Montag wishes he had a wife who would try and have a relationship with him.
"The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano. All rushing down around in a spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning." (Bradbury 15)
Montags world is falling apart all around him.
"And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike.(Bradbury 50)
No one can be different because it is unfair.
"The irony for Bradbury is that society as a whole is made up of individuals, all pursuing their personal goals while contributing to the common interest. The ideal society will balance the rights of the individual with the needs of the collective." (Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature)
People are can have their own ideas but they can not bring those ideas into society.
"You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour."(Bradbury13)
People are overdosing so much in the society that Montag lives in people don't even feel that it is a big deal anymore.
That was all there was to it, really. An hour of monologue, a poem, a comment, and then without even acknowledging the fact that Montag was a fireman, Faber with a certain trembling, wrote his address on a slip of paper. "For your file," he said, "in case you decide to be angry with me."
People don't really need rules written down they make there own rules
"But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes!" ( Bradbury 84).
People learn how to behave through watching TV not through what their parents have taught them.
You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels any more. " (Bradbury 39)
People will discipline themselves
"It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end."
People would rather dye for what they believe in than live and not be happy.
"They had this machine. They had two machines really. One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there (Bradbury 14)".
Suicide is so common is Fahrenheit 451.
"It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed." (Bradbury 1)
The author is saying how people take pleasure in seeing thing destroyed and changed.
"The books lay like great mounds of fish left to dry."
The books were left in a sense for their 'doom".
That was all there was to it, really. An hour of monologue, a poem, a comment, and then without even acknowledging the fact that Montag was a fireman, Faber with a certain trembling, wrote his address on a slip of paper. "For your file," he said, "in case you decide to be angry with me." (Bradbury 74)
The citizens impose their own rules because they are afraid of what the actual repercussions of breaking rules would be.
"It was a look,almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no moves escaped them."(Bradbury 3)
The girl did not see the world as everyone else did she saw the world in her own perspective.
"The girl stooped and looked as if she might pull back in surprise, but instead stood regarding Montag with his eyes so dark and shining and alive, he felt that he had said something quit wonderful.(Bradbury 4)
The girl viewed Montag much differently than Montag viewed himself.
"Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn ëem to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan." (Bradbury 8)
The government wants no trace of the way picture use to think.
"It doesn't want to think anything we don't want it to think." "That's sad, said Montag, quietly," because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing. What a shame if that's all it can ever know."
The hound is pretty much a killing, hunting machine it doesn't know love, and in a way that's exactly how they want humans to be.
"All of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the master file downstairs. It would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the Hound's 'memory,' a touch of amino acids, perhaps. That would account for what the animal did just now. Reacted toward me."
The machine dog has emotions in the novel
"Only a week ago, pumping a kerosene hose, I thought: God, what fun!" The old man nodded. "Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents." "So that's what I am." "There's some of it in all of us." (Bradbury 78)
The man is saying that those who don't create things are expected to be the "bad guys" of the world.
"Off-hours, yes. But time to think? If you're not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can't think of anything else but the danger, then you're playing some game or sitting in some room where you can't argue with the four wall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be, right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'"
The way that everything is set up in their world your aren't given time to think freely.
"Hell!" the operator's cigarette moved on his lips. "We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built."( Bradbury 67)
The way the men are too comfortable about Mildred overdosing is a sign that people are not happy with their lives.
" My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over."
There was a time when people conversed with each other when they wanted and just thought when they want. Now people are too occupied with their TV's or driving very fast.
"I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by being social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about thinks like this." She rattles some chestnut that had fallen of the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think its social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher."( Bradbury 29)
There way of being social in Fahrenheit 451 is not actually interacting with people its just having the presence of people around us.
"More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and super organize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns turn into motels, people in nomadic surges from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this noon and I the night before." (Bradbury 37)
There way of solving problems is to just organize thing not to actually fix the problems.
"A minute later, Three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other's limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter. Two minutes more and the room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena, bashing and backing up and bashing each other again. Montag saw a number of bodies fly in the air. "Millie, did you see that?" "I saw it, I saw it!" (Bradbury 87)
These people get their entertainment by hurting other human beings.
"I've got an awful feeling I want to smash things and kill things." "Go take the beetle." (Bradbury 64)
This is a perfect example of the violence in this society because if Montag drives the car while he's that angry he is more than like gonna hurt something or someone and Mildred is encouraging that
"Here or there, that's bound to occur. Clarisse McClellan? We've a record on her family. We've watched them carefully. Heredity and environment are funny things. You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years. The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle." (Bradbury 32)
This quote is just another example of how the government tries to control people by having them put into schools early so they can essentially brain wash these kids.
"In Fahrenheit 451, one method of protecting society from the will of its individual members is book burning—one of the most extreme manifestations of censorship. A state determined to exist as a single political body must suppress divergent voices. If one member of the whole acts independently, the state will splinter into a society of individuals. Therefore, totalitarian governments suppress the qualities and ideas that make individuals unique." (Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature)
This society is not lenient with anything that has to do with the ability of anyone to be able to think freely.
"And something more! It listens! If you put it in your ear, Montag, I can sit comfortably home, warming my frightened bones, and hear and analyse the firemen's world, find its weaknesses, without danger. I'm the Queen Bee, safe in the hive. You will be the drone, the travelling ear. Eventually, I could put out ears into all parts of the city, with various men, listening and evaluating. If the drones die, I'm still safe at home, tending my fright with a maximum of comfort and a minimum of chance."(Bradbury67)
Though we have so far seen it only as a tool of the government, we now see that technology can be used for rebellion, too.
