It is easy to see why people like Clarisse make people who are trying to run the world in the novel Fahrenheit 451 uneasy. The whole foundation and basis of their power is in making the common people believe everything that they tell them and to keep them as busy as possible so they never have time to actually stop and think about things. Everybody is wrapped up in their own lives and doing what the government says is acceptable and right to do, and they want to keep it that way.
People like Clarisse, who still hold onto the ideas of appreciating small things in life and paying attention to other people's emotions and personalities, are messing that up by paying too close attention. The people running the government do not want people thinking to think up new ideas and independent thoughts. They want them to just go along with whatever they want them to go along with and not ask questions about it.
Clarisse and her family are the types who believe that things used to be different. They believe books used to be good things and that firemen used to put out fires instead of starting them. They believe in a life when people used to have independent thoughts and share them with others and it enabled the world to grow together as a whole. They find it sad that everybody leads the same meaningless existence and their only concern is to look out for themselves and their own personal wants and needs and just forget about everybody else. They believe in a time when kids used to respect their elders and even each other, and they believe in a time when violence was not just accepted as the norm and ignored by the authorities and anybody who would be responsible for stopping it.
And while they do not necessarily voice these opinions out loud in an effort to change the public, they still affect people such as Montag who realize that Clarisse is genuinely happy and he is not even close.
No comments:
Post a Comment