A Corrupt Utopia in Fahrenheit 451 Essay

A Corrupt Utopia

A utopia is like a pack of robots. For a utopia to be achieved then everyone would have to be basically programed, and the exact same. By taking away knowledge and books to make people happy, then people end up truly unhappy but just dont realize it, or rather dont have the knowledge to understand thats what they are feeling.

In the book Fahrenheit 451 they try to create a utopia but fail because of the conformed society they make which are truly unhappy. A character Mildred is a perfect example of an individual from the society that is very conformed. In the book Mildred shrieks and thrusts herself against the wall once Montag shows her a book (books were against the law to be read at the time). When Montag tries to show Mildred that there is meaning in books Mildred freaks out because Montag is doing something against the normal. This is just one of the many ways to show that people in society dont go against the normal at all. Another way to show this is when Mrs. Phelps (one of Mildreds friends) begins to cry because Montag reads her, Mildred, and Mrs. Bowles poetry. Mrs. Phelps sobbed uncontrollably, the others turned to watch her face squeezed itself out of shape. Mrs. Phelps, and the rest of society, have gone so long without actually trying to think into things, that Mrs. Phelps couldnt cope with the fact that she couldnt understand what the poetry said. Without knowledge and books in the society people cant handle simple things, or understand why they cant understand things like poetry. Mildred, her friends, and society cannot deal with anything that goes against whats normal and expected.

People who do however keep books and learning actually can see how ridiculous society is without them. People like this, that can see how society truly is, can also see how much books are needed. Faber comments that society is without quality and time to think. This shows that people in this society compared to people from history are basically empty inside. People in the book like Faber can see the world for how it really is, and how much of a nuisance they really are about everything. People like the gentlemen at the end that have books memorized, can truly help society once it comes crashing down and realizes it needs books. Granger, one of the gentlemen from the end, claims that once the war is over they can be some use to society. These gentlemen memorize books and the works of some of the most important men in history, so once society needs to know it again, they have it right there in front of them. Once society steps out of themselves they can see that they need books, so the people that have managed to memorize or keep a few books can be of great help. Even in a conformed society the people that choose to be different can be of great help in the future.

Taking away books to make people happy, it makes them unhappy. In the book Fahrenheit 451 they burn books, by doing this people have no real meaning or feelings. After a while of realizing things and taking in feelings he began to feel fat with everything coming inside him. Montag was becoming full of feelings, something he never has had before, and his body suddenly feels overcome by them. People were basically hollow because they had no feelings, opinions or knowledge. Books werent exactly what people needed, more like the things people could get from books. Faber comments that people need what was in books, quality of information, leisure to digest it, and the rights to carry out actions based on what weve learned. Books show and provide those 3 things. The fact that we get these from books, shows that we need books to bring back this society to a more, reality thats healthy. Even though we may not like books we still need them so we dont end up empty.

So as you can see by taking away knowledge and books to make people happy, they do the opposite. By creating a utopia it makes a conformed society a robot society. Humans think that by just burning, getting rid of, our problems it will solve it but it only makes things worse, even if we dont realize that till the long run.