In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist, Guy Montag, works as a fireman who burns books instead of putting out fires, as a fireman should. Montag begins as a citizen loyal to society, burning books without asking questions and participating in the suppression of knowledge. Fireman helps destroy all forms of knowledge, books being the main subject of this novel. This story is filled with countless examples of ignorance and knowledge and is shown through most of the characters throughout the story. Fahrenheit 451's society lacks communication. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay This is a problem that Guy Montag begins to fully realize early in the story. This is a sign of ignorance. People will shift all their attention to TV instead of relationships with others. A great example of this is Mildred, Montag's tormented wife. She spends her time wondering what her next TV show will be rather than how her husband is doing. Montag begins to question everything when he meets Clarisse, who ends up asking him if he was truly happy with his life. Nobody listens to me anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're screaming at me. I can't talk to my wife: listen to the walls. I just want someone to listen to what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it will make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read. Montag had given up on fixing his relationship with Mildred because he knew that nothing could fix their unhappy life together, especially not books. So he had to turn to someone else to get the help he wanted. Faber, the one person Montag believes can help him achieve his goals and bring books and knowledge back to the world. Faber, like Montag, seeks to protect and take back the rights to the books and knowledge that the world is so afraid of and seeks to censor. Number one: Do you know why books like this are so important? They have qualities…Number two: recreation and digestion. And number three: the right to take actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two. Faber uses book knowledge as his advantage over the rest of society, who spends all their time on the electronics of the world. Faber immediately expresses his love and passion for books throughout his time in the novel, but is too afraid to do much about it. He hides in his house and is very cautious with who he comes into contact with. He considers himself a coward and it was not easy to win his trust, but Montag managed to convince him. Guy Montag, Clarisse, and Faber are all examples of the knowledge displayed throughout the story. They are different in a way that prevents them from succumbing to ignorance. They look beyond the living room walls and instead of talking about things, they talk about the meaning of things. Clarisse soon teaches Montag that happiness is very much involved in the concept of knowledge. This takes him away from ignorant and turns him into knowledgeable. He wasn't happy. He said these words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run away across the lawn with the mask and there was no way to knock on his door to ask for it back. Clarisse was the one who started Montag's journey with books and shed light on how censored and distracted the world was. No one was happy, they were all simply distracted from what the world wanted everyone to see, constantly having the television on full blast and sporting blinding billboards that stretched for miles along.
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