Engraved
ever so deeply into our mindset is a line. A line, so ancient to humanity, its
vastly length is logic itself. Yet its width, such a delicate sketch, is so
thin it is a wonder we can survive at all. Or its width, such a bolded outline,
that it is a wonder how anyone can survive those painful years at all. That
line is the border between life and death. So long it is everlasting; so thin or wide it intimidates everyone—but
that is something no person can ever admit.
We can only emphasize the line’s true
power by wavering it. It is then, that we can appreciate how thin or thick the
border is. It is then, that we can come to know what opportunity we have to life.
It is then, that we can come to know what opportunity we have to death.
Fahrenheit 451’s society falters the
border between life and death. With all of their unnatural essences they add to
the world, they end up subtracting life and death. When suicide, cultural
death, and rebirth enter a state of unruly and crazed paradoxes, the line
blurs, slowly fading away…
Too
many citizens of Fahrenheit 451's futuristic society are committing suicide.
"Ignorance is bliss"? A quote proven faulty with the relationship of
people in the US and death. They are as
one; the citizens drawn to the line as if sensing something more satisfying on the other side.
And maybe there is, but how can someone so innocent sense something so treacherous?
Guy Montag, a fireman whose occupation it was to spark fires instead of extinguish
them, found a path leading to discovery of a plot so devious he couldn't grasp
the concept in just the blink of an eye—which is what he was used to doing. His
wife, Mildred, attempted suicide. He found her lying on the ground, her
"breath going in and out, softly, faintly, in and out her nostrils, and
her not caring whether it came or went, went or came." She lie there and
asked for death, but Montag, terrified, took her to the emergency hospital.
However in that blink of an eye, Montag did see something. He saw the
Electric-Eyed Snake. Its red eyes showed such of an evil essence, yet Montag
knew that it wasn't alive. Or was it? What it truly was, was a stomach pump.
Mildred had taken pills to trigger her death, but society was too fast. When
there, while eyeing the Electric-Eyed Snake, Montag asked why there weren't
doctors performing the operation. And as the two unprofessional workers
answered (while swearing—crediting their unprofessional impression) they stated
that too many cases such as Mildred's were occurring so they built many, many
machines to reverse people's doings. It is then that Montag senses something,
something devious— possibly more devious than the Electric-Eyed Snake's eyes.
Later
on, however, connecting to the situation prior, Montag learns how many people
die of car accidents— which isn't suicide, it's murder. And he fears for pedestrians such as himself
(although there aren't many). People get killed all the time, he determines.
And then, after many blinks and many thoughts (a new change for him) he begins
to question life and death. The government supposedly cares enough to build
many machines for suicidals, but doesn't care for all the murders that take
place on a daily basis. This is when, I believe, Montag is starting to grasp
this concept. The government is only deceiving its ignorant
"blissful" people, showing them that they care for suicidals, but
then ignore other extremities of death. They are wavering the border by doing
this, thickening then thinning the line in the same day, same hour.
As
Montag wanders about, slowly being enlightened by the darkness of society, he
finds himself learning how everything came to be. Meeting a cowardly
friend, and old English teacher named Faber, he further uncovers the history of
a more cultural life/death border. Stated before, Montag has an honorable job
as a fireman (although he's not sure how honorable it is anymore). He burns
things. In particular, books. They provide education, knowledge, enlightenment…
And the country can't have that. Faber tells Montag how the government didn't
right away ban books from people's possession; it was the citizens themselves.
It was a slow process, but eventually, newspapers, books, and other
readings became less and less popular, the number of literature appreciators
dwindling to supposedly nothing. The people started it, not the government, and
Faber states that very clearly. But, then the government finds a way to
manipulate this change in culture, they can ban books altogether and occupy the
people with mind-killing activities. Montag really stops and thinks about this
though. He was a fireman, so he knew, but how did culture die if books still
exist? He knows/knew people who had them and could not bear to part with them.
Once
Montag is swallowed whole into the lies and deception, he finds himself in a
mess, for I don't think he fully understood the lunacy of his secret operation
to educate himself with books. His boss, head fireman, Captain Beatty, shows up
at his house. Captain Beatty knows exactly what Montag wants—as Captain Beatty
had once been a book-lover too. He spits quotes at Montag, throwing them in his
face. Montag doesn't say a word. Instead, I think he was thinking. How could
this be so? Books are banned, but the quotes and words are still alive? Then
Captain Beatty tells him that Montag could just borrow books from the fire
station; just for a short-period of
time, just enough time to rid himself of his book infatuation. Then Montag, I
believe, thinks again. Books are banned, but their copies are still in physical
and mental form? The border of life and death is wavering once again.
How can something be this and that at the same time? How can something be alive
and dead at the same time? How can something be as culturally wavering as that?
Again, Montag discovers another
form of the line, gone yet there at the same time.
Eventually
Montag ends his session of wandering and starts running. He tries to run from
the blurring borders of burdens and belongings and leaves his city and country
behind… but not all of it. What he finds outside of his city, is a form of
rebirth, which wavers the line. After running miles and then walking a far
distance he finds a group of men, not soliciting an evil feel. They seem…friendly,
Montag decides. So he joins them as they invite him into their circle around a
fire. Just as all seems well and the border is back to its normal consistency,
the war that has been taking place all along but had had no extreme effect on
anything takes play. It destroys the city. Montag was just far enough to be
safe and at the same time have a very good view of it all. The destruction, the
death. The line of life/death thinning so much as everyone crosses over it.
As
the scene is set, Montag is horrified and cries for Mildred, whom he left in
the city. But his newly found friends suggest that she's not worth crying over.
They suggest that the whole city isn't worth being cried over. They suggest
that all the innocent, ignorant people (who these men believe to be evil)
should not be cried over, for a new generation will soon be reborn, the era
will be reborn, and society will be reborn. Once again, I believe that Montag's
character is again wondering about the border. Maybe Montag had escaped the city
and the ignorance, but he is not yet away from a wavering border. Not yet. If
those men refused to feel remorse for those poor people who did not deserve
their fates, then the line is yet again faltered. This is so, because if those
people were not thought of as truly gone, they are thought of as going to be
"reborn", then life and death are challenged. The line is wavering,
faltering, blurring…
The
line is not invincible to mankind, to anything. It is a weak, unstable illusion
of human and life existence, for without existence there is no death. Montag
thoroughly sought out that truth of reality, and so he found knowledge. A
damaging, hurtful piece of information that will stick with his character for
the rest of his life. For life is just as painful as death…But I guess it
depends on what you fear most. If the line is thin, and then wide, we will see
who seeks life, and who seeks death—but that is something no person can ever
admit.
