“You are not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon last night. The others would never do it." (Bradbury 23-24) Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The book "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. The title itself is a symbol of censorship because that is the temperature at which books burn. In this book, the culture represented is neither happy nor sad. The censorship in the novel helps to distract people into thinking that they are happy and have everything they could possibly need. Citizens are glued to their “walls” or giant televisions and live lives where nothing of value is remembered. The government censors everything to help keep society uniform. Therefore no one will be able to overwhelm Chief Beatty with the knowledge he knows. In this essay we will explore the novel Fahrenheit 451, the themes of censorship and distraction used by Ray Bradbury in relation to happiness to advance the plot and highlight the effects of a society that censors knowledge and promotes senseless distraction. Through censorship, society has been forced to have no emotion and no knowledge of past or future events. Another effect of censorship is that it has humiliated society. “Instead of allowing people the opportunity to think and pursue academic studies, censorship only allows for self-gratification and entertainment” Through a quote from Beatty he states “fill them with incombustible data, fill them so damn full of ‘facts’ that they feel stuffed, but absolutely “brilliant” with the information . Don't give them elusive topics like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with.” (Ray Bradbury 61). of thinking that's why everyone has to think the same. With the government censoring everything, the citizens of Fahrenheit 451 have no idea what is really happening in their world all the chaos that was happening in society which always made them be in a joyful mood. Distraction is a word used to describe something or someone that stops you from concentrating. It prevents you from concentrating on whatever you are trying to do. On the other hand, happiness is a word to express feelings. When you are happy it means that everything is going well and nothing can distract you. Through characters like the Old Lady, Montag and Clarrise you can tell that they are not happy by simply pretending to be. Clarisse tells Montag "You're happy" (Bradbury 7) because that's when Montag realizes he's been distracted the whole time, he doesn't know if he's happy. This quote shows from the beginning of the book that Montag is not happy but it takes time for him to realize this. In the end, Guy Montag ends up happy and living the way he wanted to live. Montag's wife, Mildred, distracted herself with an overdose of pills. The next day he remembers none of this, but the day before he wanted to commit suicide. Having said this it shows the reader how sad and unhappy he was because he wanted to take his own life. The quote related to this is "We live in a time when flowers try to live by flowers, instead of growing with good rain and black soil." (Bradbury 83) Censorship and distraction vs. Happiness is linked because to have happiness in society things will have to be censored. The two themes are important in the book because without them people would be lost. They move the plot in many ways because they helped shape the characters. In conclusion, technology has modernized)
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