SCIENCE FICTION

“Those who don’t build must burn.  It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.” – Faber, Fahrenheit 451.

Fahreinheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  I struggle with the title I’ve given this theme.  Maybe I should have called it “Purpose” in the face of adversity.  There is a kind of adversity called “inertia” that needs to be addressed.  If I’m a middle school kid, they send me to school every day and, oddly enough, the teachers expect me to exercise self-discipline and, well…work!  I ignore this and play instead, but they have the audacity to send things home to do as well!  Again, I ignore this, go home and play, drop down at about 10:00 or 11:00 and start the whole thing over again the next day.  I think my purpose has been pretty well defined.

If we’re going to teach kids the value of persevering, maybe we should also help them become aware of the need to break through their own matrix of reality.  This is what happens to Montag, the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451.  “It was a pleasure to burn,” and life is pleasant in his world of burning books and seeking entertainment.  Then one day he meets Clarrise, who causes him to contemplate things he has never before considered and asks him the haunting question, “Are you happy?” 

At its most basic level Fahrenheit 451 is about censoring books, but it also addresses another kind of censorship – the censorship of human purpose.  In this futuristic tale the central character journeys a dangerous path of awareness that threatens the social/political organization of the oppressive society in which he lives.  His struggle to break through what he had formerly seen as benevolent may cause students to consider the value of persevering beyond the adversity of their own perceptions.