Outer circle members, please address your insights, connections, ideas, and questions here. In order to get full credit for today, you should post your thinking at least twice during the discussion, use textual support, and proofread your thinking.
Avoid using this space for side conversations or personal items.
Reserve your comments to Part 1 only.
Avoid using this space for side conversations or personal items.
Reserve your comments to Part 1 only.
I am responding to Ryans question. If you were in this book, would you still read?
ReplyDeleteI think that if I was in the book I would be scared to read. Like Ashlyn said it would be really hard to hide the fact that you read because you know more than anyone. Also none of the characters know that books hold the truth.
I'm answering Ryan R's question. It was "If you were in this book, would you still read books?" If I was in this book, I definitely wouldn't still read books. I think if I was put in a society where technology is superior over books then I would be technology all the way. Also, our generation is already starting to forget about books due to technology. For example, we don't use text books anymore, we use online books.
ReplyDeleteGoing off of what Lauren said about suicide in the book's society compared to ours, I think that suicide doesn't affect as many people in the book as it does in real life because the people in the book see so much violence on their wall tvs. For example in the graphic novel, on page 85, the walls are covered with two clowns chainsawing arms off eachother. I think if people are exposed to this much violence a lot then suicide won't affect them as much because they've heard of sadder things and they've seen more graphic things.
ReplyDeleteI am answering Iris T's question "Why would someone who is supposed to be enforcing the law break it?" I think that as someone who is expected to enforce a law he must be really curious about why he is enforcing it and want to understand more about books. I think that Montag needs a reason to do his job and the only way is to read books which means breaking the law.
ReplyDeleteDelaney posed the question Do books signify something? If so what?
ReplyDeleteThe book shows the books are a source of light and insight/hope on page 1&2 of the book Bradbury states “..while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch… the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on awind turned dark with burning” This demonstrating that when books and knowledge is lost and burned it turns to darkness and hurt. The pigeon and image a freedom and the ability to fly and learn and the light associated with that image shows what books signify and why they are important to society. Luke stated that curiosity is what helps pass on knowledge and the woman dying for her books shows the importance of books and knowledge in society and how when books are burned it makes this society hurt more and more leading to more death and attempts to hurt oneself showing the need for the medics machine. But would the Medic's need the machine if books were still in society and how would people be happy if books were still around?
I am getting a common topic from the conversation. It seems like the motif of books is used as a tool. I think this because Clarice is really the only smart person and she reads books. All of the other characters are shown as kind of stupid, this isn't a bad thing but I think Bradbury is trying to bring the books into the story and use them to make people smarter.
ReplyDeleteFollowing up on Lauren's question "Does the lack of knowledge/education increase violent actions?" I strongly agree, if we are not knowledgeable of the past we will repeat those mistakes over and over again. The more knowledgeable you are the more you will understand consequences and why you shouldn't do things. When you read a book you can see things from someone else's perspective and see the choices they make, this can help someone have more empathy and overall make someone a kinder person.
ReplyDeleteI'm responding to Ryan's question of- "If you were in this book, would you still read books?" If I'm a character in the book, I will not take the risk of putting myself and my family in danger to satisfy my curiosity and my desire for the truth. Like Captain Beatty on page 52 of the comic book said, "I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing." In the future that Bradbury described, there will still be a countless number of books. The majority of the book will have no connection with society or benefit your mind reading it. The number of useless informations outweighs the wise words. Even if you discover the truth about how fake the government is and how the past has changed in the books, what significant impact can you make to change the world? There's nothing you can do about the situation, so why bother reading books and make yourself a lawbreaker.
ReplyDeleteEme posed the question What would happen if people decided to mask out their conflicts, feelings, emotions, etc?
ReplyDeleteI think today we see a lot of this now and in Fahrenheit 451 the issue is much worse as people are hiding their emotions and just doing what the government tells them to do and practically forces them to do things like their looks. This overall hurts people and leads people to do self-harm as we see in the book it has become a very large issue where in the book there are "...nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built." (Bradbury 13) When these feelings are hidden it leads people not to want to live and creates a very large problem for society. The book demonstrates when people hide their feelings and emotions they don't have the will to live they are not happy with hiding who they are to fit in with a societal uniformity.
ReplyDeleteIris T asks why would a law enforcer like Montag break the law? I think that a law enforcer like Montag would break the law because of curiosity. Beatty says it himself that "at least once in his career, every fireman gets an itch. What do the books say?" he comes straight out and just tells Montag that that every fireman gets curious about the books. I don't think that Montag breaks the law because he wants to, I think he breaks the law because he is unhappy and wants to know why that is.
ReplyDeleteDrew S asked "if you do something wrong for a long time, does it seem right?" I think this is a great question because there are so many layers to this question. I think that what you perceive as wrong or right is mostly influenced by the society that you have been raised in. I don't think that you would continue to do something that you thought was wrong. However if you were told that what you were doing was right, you would likely never realize that it is wrong. This is what Montag seems to be struggling with throughout the book. He has been told his whole life that books are bad and burning them is the right thing to do. And now he is asking himself if that is really true. Anything that you are told is right until you ask yourself to think otherwise and you realize it is wrong.
Drew wrote the question"If you do something wrong for a long time does it seem right?" On page 45 of the comic book, Montag answers the question by asking, " Mildred, how would it be if, well, maybe, I quit my job awhile?" Montag has suffered from the sickness of witnessing an innocent person died because of his job. He can no longer force himself to work again when he realizes there's no great purpose in what he's doing. He's not creating happiness, rather tragedies.
ReplyDeleteI was just making comments from my annotations and some thoughts from the discussion.
ReplyDeleteOn page 48-49 I wrote in my annotations that is was strange that Ray Bradbury said "The mind drinks less. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, nowhere the gasoline refugee." I think it is strange that the book is so old and Bradbury saw the future in such a accurate way.
It was interesting how Montag was the only fireman that was questioning the things they did. Even when the captain said it was common that other fireman experienced the same things that Montag is feelings. Was Montag smart enough to know that something wasn't right. In the discussion unhappiness was talked about a lot so I asked
Why is there such a view of fake happiness, depression and drug overdose why would the people in the time allow them to get to the point where there is a massive amount of suicides and killings. The word massacre pops up in my head when I think of this, but If I was in the book I don't think there would be "massacres" anymore it would just be a normal thing. How could people allow themselves to get so unhappy.
What message is Fahrenheit 451 trying to show, there are so many so what would be the main one.