Alienation in Fahrenheit 451
Alienation in Fahrenheit 451
We sit on the subways and we ride on the busses, we drown the outside world with our headphones and our television sets, and we walk on the sidewalks brushing past one another just enough to avoid physical contact so that we can continue on our "merry" way towards our next destination. As a society, we beeline our way through life, weaving between moments of rendezvous and accidental concurrence, and we surround ourselves with instruments of interference in an attempt to pull ourselves out of the day-to-day life. As they say, art imitates life, and in a very sadistic way Fahrenheit 451 imitates what we are, and what we could become. Fahrenheit depicts a future where the common people surround themselves with such instruments to a degree far greater than our own. and it shows what could become of us if we are to continue gallivanting through life as individuals hermetically sealed with our instruments to avoid social communion. Through the use of dialogue and the use of Montag's interior monologue, the speaker displays a sense of alienation between the individuals in the society, causing the reader to reflect upon actions he or she has made that might have disconnected them from others. When the story begins the reader sees that Montag is disconnected from his wife, Mildred, by witnessing a moment of interior monologue by him, and a dialogue between him and Mildred. Montag had just gotten off duty, and walked into an inevitable conversation with his new neighbor Clarisse McClellan. When the meeting came to a close Clarisse asks Guy a simple question of his true happiness. Montag enters his house just after the conversaion, stating "'[h]appy! Of all the nonsense.' He stopped laughing... Of course I'm happy. What does she think? I'm not? he asked the quiet rooms." (Page 10). Montag is clearly reflecting on the conversation he and Clarisse shared, and begins talking to himself, questioning her motives as to even ask such an absurd
We sit on the subways and we ride on the busses, we drown the outside world with our headphones and our television sets, and we walk on the sidewalks brushing past one another just enough to avoid physical contact so that we can continue on our "merry" way towards our next destination. As a society, we beeline our way through life, weaving between moments of rendezvous and accidental concurrence, and we surround ourselves with instruments of interference in an attempt to pull ourselves out of the day-to-day life. As they say, art imitates life, and in a very sadistic way Fahrenheit 451 imitates what we are, and what we could become. Fahrenheit depicts a future where the common people surround themselves with such instruments to a degree far greater than our own. and it shows what could become of us if we are to continue gallivanting through life as individuals hermetically sealed with our instruments to avoid social communion. Through the use of dialogue and the use of Montag's interior monologue, the speaker displays a sense of alienation between the individuals in the society, causing the reader to reflect upon actions he or she has made that might have disconnected them from others. When the story begins the reader sees that Montag is disconnected from his wife, Mildred, by witnessing a moment of interior monologue by him, and a dialogue between him and Mildred. Montag had just gotten off duty, and walked into an inevitable conversation with his new neighbor Clarisse McClellan. When the meeting came to a close Clarisse asks Guy a simple question of his true happiness. Montag enters his house just after the conversaion, stating "'[h]appy! Of all the nonsense.' He stopped laughing... Of course I'm happy. What does she think? I'm not? he asked the quiet rooms." (Page 10). Montag is clearly reflecting on the conversation he and Clarisse shared, and begins talking to himself, questioning her motives as to even ask such an absurd