Conformity in Fahrenheit 451
Mindless and Obeying Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 features a fictional and futuristic firefighter named Guy Montag. As a firefighter, Montag does not put out fires. Instead, he starts them in order to burn books and, basically, knowledge to the human race. He does not have any second thoughts about his responsibility until he meets seventeen-year-old Clarisse McClellan. She reveals many wonders of the world to Montag and causes him to rethink what he is doing in burning books. After his talks with her, the society’s obedience to the law that bans knowledge, thinking, and creativity also increasingly distresses him. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows conformity in the futuristic America through schooling, leisure, and fright. The children in the society are never actually taught during school hours. Captain Beatty, another firefighter, tells Montag that the schools " Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of “facts” they feel stuffed, but absolutely “brilliant” with information” (61). The “teachers” (actually film) stuff the students with “knowledge”, making them feel smart, but they are never taught to question any of the information or form their own opinion on matters. Clarisse says, “Do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don’t; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher” (29). In being taught not to question anything, including the law, education supports conformity. In a similar way, entertainment encourages obedience as well. In the culture that Montag lives in, it is expected in everyone to participate in the civilization’s entertainment sources: mindless television, the “shell”, and violent games. Television (a.k.a. parlor walls) are made up of a flat screen on a wall; sometimes it fills all of the walls instead of just one, and is made up of fast-moving, mindless flashing images of people known as the “family”. Every second they are on,