Author's Note: This is my essay for Fahrenheit 451, where the characters are fighting for different causes. One is about the knowledge books give you. One person wants to learn more from them and fights for the freedom to do so. The other person is standing in his way and confuses him with different quotes from books. In the end jealousy of the knowledge others have had started the entire problem.
Sitting in the library stuffing any sort facts and information into your head, like your going to be on Jeopardy that night and you haven’t studied anything; but in fact you just feel the need to have those facts in your brain. All those facts and figures in your head make you feel special, like you are the only one with all the answers. You read and read scanning the words barely glancing at them, you need to be the first one with this knowledge, you need to be the only person that knows this. You think to yourself, maybe, one day, that all have so much knowledge all become someone important, someone whose name and face everyone in the entire planet will know. With this picture in your head you vow to never share this knowledge with anyone and you want more. Soon you start to leave the library, your daydreams are coming true and you can’t believe that anything different will happen. Having all the knowledge in the world doesn’t matter unless you put it to good use and share it with others.
In Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag is going through a lot more than the average guy is. First he finds his wife trying to kill herself, then he meets a girl who changes his perspective of the world around him. At first he lives for the pleasure of burning houses and whatever is inside of them, but then he meets Clarisse, who changes Montag in a way that even he himself doesn’t understand. When Montag and Clarisse first meet one question Clarisse asks is,”Are you happy?” Montag, not giving the question a second thought, says yes of course he is. He realizes that he is not happy when he comes home from work and sees his wife practically dead on the bedroom floor.
In this book, knowledge is something people want. Books are not allowed for fear that someone could have so much knowledge they could figure out a way to take over. Some people risk their lives for that knowledge, but they have people that take care of those people, the are called firemen. Now normally when someone says firemen you think of people who risk their lives to stop a fire destroying some one’s home. In this book, which is a dystopic version of our world now, firemen start fires . They start fires that burn books, the knowledge, and everything else inside. Knowledge is something that you need to share with someone in order to keep it alive and safe. The more people that share your knowledge; the harder it is for the firemen to stop them.
Fahrenheit 451 is a complete opposite version of our world. The people in the book don’t love each other the way people should. People only seem to marry for each other’s money, looks, and other people’s jealousy. People in our world marry each other out of love and happiness. Parents don’t even care about their own children; they only see them about four times a year, and they dislike those few days! Now, in our, time/world parents dread the day their children grow up and leave the safety of their arms. Bradbury creates the perfect dystopic world for Fahrenheit 451.
Every person is different and knows different facts about their history or ancestors. It is almost impossible to learn everything and actually remember it. If your goal is to learn everything you are condemning yourself to a life of isolation. Even if you read every book in the world you still will not know everything. You won’t know the personal struggles every Indian tribe had because no one recorded these stories. You will not know the stories about every person in the world, it would be to much for your brain. The brain is not made to hold all the knowledge in the world; your brain could pretty much explode. No one is meant to know everything, that is why everyone has different interest they learn about and pick up different facts along the road.
