The sieve and the sand is important symbol in Fahrenheit 451.It is a reflection of Montag’s Childhood memory of racing to full sieve of sand to get a dime from his cousin it compares to his attempt to read a whole bible in attempt to receive as much information as possible. The idea of censorship seems to be the main idea but what about fulfillment?
Do you realize that today the things that we as a culture are obsessed with such as reality TV and dating shows is a sign of emptiness in Bradbury characters?
In a Jeremy Smith article it states "Almost everything in Fahrenheit 451 has come about, one way or another”.I would have to agree look at Mildred and Faber there the two example of what our society looks like. Mildred is the example of our obsession with the media and how if consumes us to the point where she even turned her husband in for going against what she felt like was normal and challenging the idea of perfect life on TV. Faber on the other hand is like the dying breed of education and knowing how important could be books are. These are two of Montages internal conflicts.
Quotes to think about?
“Brainless, or merely trapped in a dream from which we cannot wake”?
“Montag pleads with Faber to teach him to understand what he reads, but Faber turns him away.”It's not books you need," says Faber, in the novel's wisest and most self-aware moment. "It's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all." www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20031013/fahrenheit.shtml
Questions
What do you think Bradbury would think of our culture, now that we have so much new technology?
What do you think Bradbury would think of the internet and the lack of censorship?
If Bradbury could predict this so long ago have we fallen into the traps?
• 33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book after college.
• 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.
• There are over 17,000 radio stations and over 2,000 TV stations in America today.
• Each day in the U.S., people spend on average 4.7 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening
to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
• The projected average number of hours an individual (12 and older) will spend watching
television this year is 1,750.
• In a 65-year life, the average person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
• Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child - 20,000
• Number of videos rented daily in the U.S. - 6 million
• Number of public library items checked out daily - 3 million
• Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges - 59%
• Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court - 17%
www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article22857.html
What do you think about these stats? Is Modern America a Example of Mildred?
I think it is so amazing how this book eerily describes how today's society is. In the second part of this book it really shows how distant some people are from the real world, in the book nobody realized that Clarisse was dead. Most of the charachters in the book are concerned about themselves and no one else. A great example of this is when Mildred's friends are talking about children and one says that she sends her kids to school and then when they come home they juts place them infornt of the telvisor. There are countless people who do that whith their own children in today's society.
ReplyDeleteThis part of the book resonates a lot differently than the first section. The pace in The Sieve and the Sand is quicker,manic, wild, and enveloped me deeper in Montag's world. What should he do? He now knows too much! Where did the girl go? His peeks into a different existence. His inability to control himself with Mildred's friends exposing their willingness to conform to a homogenized life where their "family" is images on television screens. It is a very interesting parallel to today's society. Hey, everyone knows who Snooky is that's for sure. Who our are elected officials are? Not so much. I felt like I wanted to reach in and shake Mildred through the pages when she couldn't see the importance of books. When Montag realizes that his wife has been burning some books and retaliates by hiding them outside, it became very clear of their relationship and what it had become and I cannot help but think of the foreshadowing this situation has set.Her stubbornness to change from the comfort of the ear buds, sleeping pills, and artificial world versus Montag's need to know is really intense. All the while thinking how did the author know that this life would become our reality?
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ReplyDelete“It's not books you need it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not ... books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all.”
ReplyDeleteSpecifically!
“Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all."
Exactly!
I think this quote points directly to the discussion we had last Thursday in class about Kindles and technology in general. If memory serves me well we were taking about the aesthetics of books. It seemed to me that the actual book itself (the typography, the paper, the binding, the smell et cetera) was almost romanticized into being something greater than it really is—a receptacle for information.
As someone who works in publishing and book design, it could certainly be said that I have a somewhat romantic relationship with books as well; when I really think of books, I think about the information obtained in them. In reality, that information can come in any form. Reading on a computer screen isn't as comfortable as reading words on paper but, technology certainly makes it easer to obtain unimaginable amounts of information that wasn't always available before. Sure libraries are huge and full of books, journals and archives however, they aren't all open to the general public. Google, thanks to technology, has digitized hundreds of thousands (if not billions) of pages of books and journals from public, university and private libraries. JSTOR is another example of technology that brings us valuable information that would be otherwise difficult (or even impossible) to get a hold of. What is important is what one does with the information one is given, regardless of the receptacle. A few weeks ago on his CNN program, GPS, Fareed Zakaria had a great discussion with writer Clay Shirky, on precisely this issue (I apologize that all I could find was a transcript of the entire show, the interview with Shirky appears about halfway down the page):
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1008/29/fzgps.01.html
“If Bradbury could predict this so long ago have we fallen into the traps”?
I don't know if I would say we have fallen into a trap per se but, I do stand by the idea that the society (the majority) in Fahrenheit 451 indeed asked for the cultural reality they live in—their Utopia. I would also go so far to say that our society asks for this reality as well, maybe not to the extremes that Bradbury wrote about but, the statistics posted (as well as this article: http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx) allude to the fact that there are quite a few Americans (people) out there that wouldn't miss books.
This article also really says a lot about our culture—what we are watching, and who wants run the show: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/09/29/2010-09-29_levi_johnston_stumbles_in_tv_interview_asked_same_questions_katie_couric_posed_t.html
... remember, we as a public ask for this ...
Do I remain optimistic? People can do whatever they want ...
As the book progresses it picks up its pace delving into highly controversial subject matter. I love how Montag is turning out as a character, not giving up on his inclinations that there has to be SOMETHING more in this "life" then television, sleeping pills, and most importantly, something more in the books he has been systematically burning his entire life.
ReplyDeleteMontag grows immensely in this part of the book and I love what he is becoming. When Montag tells his wife of the book I knew there was no turning back for him. As for Montag, I am very hopeful to see where he ends up & as for everybody else -- I don't believe that the masses will immediately conform to Montag & Farber's ideology (think about what Mildred's friends said about having children!!)BUT I have hopes for the society in the end, all you could do is have hope until it fails on the last page..
Which brings me to OUR society . .
Gotta' have hope in our society until it fails, BUT I do acknowledge daily the vast corruption in almost every detail of our world. If I were to type out every TYPE of corruption that exists in our world I'd be here until I died, but to name a few, MONEY dictates every single aspect of life, The media dictates our feelings and what we think is "going on" etc etc etccc. Hate to say it, but in a few hundred years, our society has potential to morph into something very similar to what is portrayed by Bradbury.
Nonetheless, there is good and bad in all, and I can speak for myself only, and say that I personally TRY to do my part every second of every day, and Montag seems to be trying to start to do the same and is starting in the best place, gaining knowledge!
As Shane posted, books are just receptacles for information and I would assume that at some point television and some of today’s media was intended to be the same. Television is not always a bad thing but it has become more of an addiction in society. Books can be just as addictive if we just read and read and as good as books are; is too much of a good thing, a good thing? In my opinion, it is now easier for some to quit drinking or smoking than it is for them to stop watching television but I don’t think it’s because TV is bad, I think as humans we have an addictive nature and anything that we find good or fun, it is in our nature to abuse.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the stats posted, it didn’t surprise me on bit as so many of us look at reading as a task and not something that is fun. However, I really do believe reading has also declined because women are working now more than ever. Based on the United States Department of Labor, 100 years ago only 6% of women were working women where as today 46.8 % of the workforces in the United States are women, leaving a lot less time for reading. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14175229. The above link will confirm my suspicion that women read more than men and this is a big part of what has lead to the decline. Another huge reason why reading is in such a decline is the emergence of the computer and with one in almost every home, many that would have grabbed a book and a glass of wine are now grabbing the keyboard and mouse to browse the web.
Ray Bradbury was really close in predicting some things that are now common place today but when you really think about it, is predicting something that hard to do. I predict in the next 30 years, we will be cloning human cells for surgery and cloning meat for food. Now I know many of my classmates are going to say I’m psychic but sad to say, I’m not. I am just not quite sold on his powers of prediction; I just think he is good observation.
I agree that in the second chapter Bradbury talks more about politics and how TV makes people politically passive because it doesn't let people think and make their own decisions: "The television is real... 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”. And it is not just because of the TV itself, but because of the "quality of information": CNN vs. Jersey shore/ Kardashians etc. After watching the last two regularly one would choose a president on a basis of looks, just like Mildred did. However, not everything is that bad. Unlike the characters of the book, we do have a choice of what to watch, what to read and what to think. And since Bradbury is talking about the quality of information i think that it is important to understand that the quality of information in books is also important. Reading a cosmopolitan/chick flick does not equals reading "War and Peace". This statistics doesn't really show what percentage of people were reading quality literature before the TV appeared.
ReplyDeleteThe Sieve and the Sand seems like a projection of a moment in the first part of the book where Montag begins to be putrefied by the smell of kerosene to which he used to think smelled of "perfume." This turning of a leaf type of moment, this fragile flip of his senses and his mind propels the entire second part of the novel and turns Montag into exactly what he would have never expected. He even tells Mildred about the book hiding and when he realizes that she has burned some, he finds new hiding places....this is NOT the Guy Montag we met on page 1!
ReplyDeleteTo the analysis:
What I find particularly interesting in all this is the constant reference (however eerie) to our own society. Especially after last week's discussion, I couldn't help but feel like I don't read enough, or that I might spend an hour or two too much per week watching tv shows that I'm pretty sure I'm not invested in at all, and that half of the books on my shelf, I started but have not finished. And the statistics...dear lord. I'm in awe of the fact that "In a 65-year life, the average person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube," and that "80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year." REAL, AMERICAN FAMILIES (as in, adults who have CHILDREN), 80% of them DIDN'T buy or read a book in the last YEAR? It seems like a nightmare, or Bradbury's precise assumption and prediction of and for society.
Although I'm not a mother (and don't plan to be one in the next 5 years), I can't imagine NOT buying BOOKS or READING BOOKS with my KIDS. I'm upper-casing letters because I can't italicize, or show my tone of voice or express emotion though letters in cyber space (isn't this all too similar a problem to what is described in Montag's reality?) but really, numbers don't lie and it's obscene to me that our country, any country for that matter, would let something like this happen.
As for the future, I can only hope for the best and keep buying books, checking books out from libraries, try to limit my t.v. watching and commercial viewing and overall be a more aware - more "Clarissed" - person.
Osmosis...
ReplyDeleteFaber is right. There is, much like Santa Claus, no such thing as a magical book. "The magic is only in what the books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." And, yes, aesthetic nostalgia is not a necessary factor -- albeit one that I do cherish -- to be pragmatic about it. And, the image of quilted ideas brings, immediately to mind, the internet; however, if we are indeed in a transitory period, shifting away from printed media (as it seems to be detailed in the given statistics), the shift is in our tools and we must make sure that in the shift the fundamental patchwork, the magic, is preserved and translated -- and I don't mean the digitized portraits of book pages but the quality of the matter itself, which Faber describes as "texture", more specifically as "pores".
Hm. Does wikipedia have pores? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis
I think the one thing that differs books and television is the number of books published and the number of major new stations on T.V. When I say MAJOR I mean the ones frequently watched. Yes, there are so many stations out there but most people only follow the four or five major ones. There is more of a chance to be a victim of propaganda from the news on T.V. than reading books. Most of the major news stations that people follow on TV are one sided. There are so many books published every year that have so many views and different voices.
ReplyDeleteI want to start reading more books because I feel it will help me become a better person. When you read different accounts and different sides to the story it allows you to open your mind. I think I speak for everyone when I say there have been times where I have had a one sided belief and heard a few different sides to a story and changed my opinion and how I felt on that particular topic. I think the wide array of books allow us to reach a certain intelligence and understanding if we take advantage of them.
I think the book is stating that a lot of the problems in the world coming from ignorance and a lack of knowledge. It is all a deep confusion yet curious minds wondering. I think Faber puts an emphasis on the active mind. A mind that is constanly thinking, analyzing, and challenging ideas is the mind we ought to have.
I'm posting this for Sean. So, the following belongs to Sean, not me:
ReplyDeleteAs I was sitting in English class last Tuesday, waiting for 2:15 on the dot, when Prof. Dodson would waltz in to ask how everyone's weekend was, I remember zoning out in the direction of someone's desk. When I came to and realized what i was looking at, I was staring at the line on the cover of someone's copy of Fahrenheit 451, which read, "More relevant now more than ever!"
On the train commute home, I thought about those words, as I sat there with my ears plugged up with headphones and blasting music, which deafened me to the outside world. Our culture truly is turning into the "utopia" that Bradbury mocked in his novel. I did a bit of research, and noticed that modern headphones, much less in ear headphone buds, weren't even available to the public until the late 1950s, a few years (give or take) after Bradbury's novel. The fact that he could predict the subtleties (the in ear headphones being compared to the "seashell radio" that Mildred wears and of the variation that Montag wears), down to the absolute specifics, of a future society that so mimicked ours was astonishing to me. The world, in one way or the other as pointed out in Brian Fay's post, has turned out to be a spitting image of that in Bradbury's fictional society. We have a load of new technology, an internet that links the world, and a nation increasing the standards of what's "modern." Bradbury would have a self satisfied laugh if he were to truly think of this culture, because it resembles his so much. Though with it, there would be a tinge of disappointment, as this culture IS like the one he warned us about. The internet, for instance, can undergo such large amounts of censorship by the federal government (and other organizations), in such secrecy, to the point that the average browser has no idea that what he is looking at, and accepting as fact, could have been rewritten under a censored lens. Overall, the general uncensored internet, I feel, would make Bradbury happy--information in this case isn't censored by burning, and is, after all, mostly available to the general public.
In the end, viewing our society under a Fahrenheit 451 lens, and after reviewing the facts about American society, I would say that society has, or at least, is beginning to fall into the pitfalls of Fahrenheit 451 society. American society is beginning to drift from books, families and people try to escape from them, and the usage of books, through the digital copying onto the internet and other media, and books are playing a smaller and smaller role in society.
This, incorporating Beatty and Bradbury's overall theme, is the recipe for disaster.
I wouldn't say that society is headed straight for F451's society, but as our own society grows and becomes more "modern," we are sure headed for it at full speed. I do, however, believe that people like Faber in American society today won't go down without a fight; they won't let society degrade (or upgrade) to the point where books won't be needed in life.
Only time, and the voices and actions of people like Faber, and well, us, will determine if modern day culture will steer away from the dystopia present in Bradbury's work.
Wow, Chapter two in Fahrenheit 451 is so realistic. It is still hard for me to believe that the book was written in the 1950's. If there was a film to this movie, the perfect film would just be life as we live it today. A very important part in this chapter; to my opinion was the reading of the poem, I believe it was very ironic for Mildred to tell Guy to read the poem "Dover Beach" for one of its verse describes the exact events that are occurring in the story:
ReplyDelete"Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy,nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and
flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
It is known that in the book there is a war going on and that not any single person seems to care. They go on with their lifes like there is no existence for the past. Mildred's friend for example; Mrs. Bowles, who continues to live a normal life without letting the fact that she's been married three times, one of her husbands committed suicide and the "dozen abortions" she committed (though having two kids that are nonexistent to her) affect her. I've met many people today that erase their past whether to prevent pain or just because it is way easier for them to move on without having "bad memories" hunting them.
To agree with part of Prof. Dodson's comment,I've also met with ignorant mothers who use school and those "educational" shows on TV as an escape from their motherly duties. Still I've also met with people who do live in America like there is no war going on. I've heard comments like "its all the way on the other side of the world, it doesn't matter" and I even know people who purposely exclude anything that may suggest to them that there IS war going on since 2003.
I do believe that Bradbury would think that the majority of Americans are just like Mildred. About a century or two ago, people would have probably read Fahrenheit 451 and assumed that Mildred does not have any sense in reality, is completely ignorant ,and is mentally trapped in technology. However, I also believe that Bradbury must have had an idea that this society would eventually become this way, which is why he might have used Mildred in his reading to symbolize Modern America.
ReplyDeletePerhaps our world is a condensed version of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; we are not without hope, yet we are undoubtedly on a path that will lead to a loss of freedom and identity. The given statistics about the lack of readers in America really struck me and made me realize the threatening nature of media in our society. Everything is to go- fast food, fast transportation, fast information. In this surge of information we are still at a loss. Where all the answers are at our fingertips, there is no longer excitement in uncovering and searching beyond what is required. It is as if we are losing our inquisitive nature and become content with a Mildred-like substance less existence. There is an underlying discontent, a unsettling nature that society masks with reality tv, celebrity gossip, toothpaste commercials and an overwhelming amount of "things". So lost in these details and information, it becomes difficult to uncover the source of our unhappiness. Although censorship limits the boundaries of where our thoughts, ideas, perspectives can go, it cannot prevent the formation of them. There is nothing "magical" about books according to Farber, rather it is the "infinite detail and awareness" that we are after.
ReplyDelete-Devki
It’s amazing to know the statistics on watching television are so high and reading so low. There are some people that say that they don’t watch that much TV but little by little it adds up and when they look back at how much time they were in front of that idiot box as one of teachers used to say will be a large amount. I’m not that surprised in that people don’t read because they did so before not because of pleasure but because they had to. Today it’s hard to read a book because it takes time you could have been spending watching a movie or TV show. Its incredible how closely related our world is to Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in how people do what they like to do and take the easy path which leads to ignorance instead of the harder path which leads to creative and abstract thinking. I also agree that the TV does make you see its side of the story even if you just watch it for the weather. You might get to hear about some incident and later on hear people talk about it and get involved but on the side of the news channel you watched.
ReplyDeleteThe film that was depicted after this book was Equalibrium...I want everyone to go out and watch this movie...this is what the book was talking about....This movie is closer to the book than to our reality...
ReplyDeleteI honestly don’t think Bradbury would be able to accept all of our new technologies. Everything is advanced and not everyone can get used to it. Bradbury would probably think our intelligences and knowledge would come to an end. If he thinks television is already “bad” for the society, then nowadays technologies would be a disaster. I believe he would definitely go against the existence of internet. Everyone in the society uses internet, it is worldwide. Internet is convenient, useful, and simple for many to use. You can just basically find whatever you need on the internet. Many individuals would choose internet over other sources, such as books and newspapers. I don’t agree with Bradbury because the society hasn’t became brainless. New technologies had helped a lot towards the society and it has replaced a lot of old resources, but it doesn’t mean they’re gone. Books are still available and being read everyday. The statistics might be true but it doesn’t necessary mean Modern America is an example of Mildred. There are still people who cares for books as much as other technologies.
ReplyDeleteTo me the book continues to be a symbol of our life in the here and now. We are very censored to be the one to make the break is a risk. To be the one who is different scares us just as it scared Mildred. Mildred is the epitome of who we are today when we just accept the world around us and refuse to question. Montag shows us what it is like to question. The resistance he meets is equal to the resistance we feel we would meet if we broke free from the pack and questioned. We feel as though we cannot risk ourselves by questioning.
ReplyDeleteIf Bradbury were to see the technology we have today, I think he would be shocked to the extent of how much we have available to us. We have information available at our fingertips, information that people in the past could not have as easily as we have. To be able live in a world that is not as censored provides us with the ability to question. Even if we are fearful to question we are able to question and that gives us the power. We have to take the risk but the answers are out there.
It’s amazing to see something written so long can give a good representation to the world today, but yet again nothing is new under the sun. As people we tend to like easier life, to be entertained and be happy. Why read a book when you can watch the movie? Why read the paper when you can see the news. As time progresses and new technological development is created, the more option one has for past time. In the past the things one was able to engage in was limited. Books were one of the main form of entertainment and form of communication. The days of the books are dying and I think brad wanted to show us that. I also think he is saying the time will come that we will have to return to the books if not all may we know might be lost.
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