Realism vs. Surrealism
Essay Topic: "Why does Ray Bradbury create Beatty? Why is he so important? What makes is death so significant?"
Realism vs. Surrealism Books are a major piece in the puzzle of life. When books, a source that points out a society’s imperfections, are taken away, humanity is lost. In Ray Bradbury’s scientific novel Fahrenheit 451, firemen are the people to start fires, rather than extinguish them, as they do in the modern world. They also investigate homes that are reported to be sheltering books. Owning books and reading books is against the law in this setting, and if any are found during the investigation, the owner is arrested and the books are burned. Captain Beatty, the leader of the firemen, is portrayed as a mysterious and suspicious man, who goes around quoting books during the day, and burning them at night. Later on in the story it was made clear that Captain Beatty has read books in his lifetime; however he turned away from them because he was required to think on his own. Ray Bradbury created this character to show that the awareness of imperfections in society can, in some case, lead to the missing desire to use the knowledge. Beatty is the type of person, who after learning the truth and reality, returns to the unreality he was used to. This relates to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The cave that Plato thought of was set up with prisoners chained up, facing a wall that projects shadows originating from puppets behind the prisoners on a platform. Beneath the platform and behind the prisoners is an opening which leads into the real world. The essence of the philosophy is that a prisoner is let go into the real world with the knowledge they have, such as the puppets’ shadows. For example, if a prisoner saw a dog in the real world, he would think that it is fake, because he accepted the reality of the shadow of the dog projected on the cave wall. The slave then realizes, the images shown in the cave are an unreality. Once they are exposed to the
Realism vs. Surrealism Books are a major piece in the puzzle of life. When books, a source that points out a society’s imperfections, are taken away, humanity is lost. In Ray Bradbury’s scientific novel Fahrenheit 451, firemen are the people to start fires, rather than extinguish them, as they do in the modern world. They also investigate homes that are reported to be sheltering books. Owning books and reading books is against the law in this setting, and if any are found during the investigation, the owner is arrested and the books are burned. Captain Beatty, the leader of the firemen, is portrayed as a mysterious and suspicious man, who goes around quoting books during the day, and burning them at night. Later on in the story it was made clear that Captain Beatty has read books in his lifetime; however he turned away from them because he was required to think on his own. Ray Bradbury created this character to show that the awareness of imperfections in society can, in some case, lead to the missing desire to use the knowledge. Beatty is the type of person, who after learning the truth and reality, returns to the unreality he was used to. This relates to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The cave that Plato thought of was set up with prisoners chained up, facing a wall that projects shadows originating from puppets behind the prisoners on a platform. Beneath the platform and behind the prisoners is an opening which leads into the real world. The essence of the philosophy is that a prisoner is let go into the real world with the knowledge they have, such as the puppets’ shadows. For example, if a prisoner saw a dog in the real world, he would think that it is fake, because he accepted the reality of the shadow of the dog projected on the cave wall. The slave then realizes, the images shown in the cave are an unreality. Once they are exposed to the