Fahrenheit 451: Clarisse’s Vision



Fahrenheit 451: Beatty’s Vision

An In-Class, Open-Book Group Exercise

( Read all directions aloud with group.

Remember how important characters in Bradbury’s book always get a chance to make a speech about the world? Well, Beatty visits Montag at home and makes a speech explaining why the world is the way it is. Beatty is different from Clarisse in many ways, but especially because he honestly believes that people are better off in the F451 present than they were in the past that Clarisse has heard of and wishes for.

Today’s work will guide you through thinking about this important chapter of the book. Use separate paper, of course. Be neat. The group only needs to hand in one copy.

Part 1—Character development

Directions: All of these quotes are taken from Montag and Mildred’s conversation about the old woman. You will need to look this up; I recommend taking parts and reading the conversation aloud. For each quote, explain what the quote shows us about Montag and/or Millie. Bullet your answers.

1. “He pressed at the pain in his eyes and suddenly the odor of kerosene made him vomit” (49).

2. “We burnt an old woman with her books.”

“It’s a good thing the rug’s washable” (49)…

“You want to give up everything?…She’s nothing to me…” (51)

3. “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine…this fire’ll last me the rest of my life” (51).

4. “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while” (52).

5. “But that was another Mildred, that was a Mildred so deep inside this one, and so bothered, so really bothered, that the two women had never met” (52).

Part 2—Connections to the real world

Directions: Bullet quick answers to these three questions.

1. In 1790, Benjamin Franklin became the first fireman in the USA. How do you think he would react to the F451 world? Why?

2. Is it realistic to try to make all people happy all the time? If it is possible, is it worth the cost?

3. Is conflict necessary to inspire growth? Can people make progress without new and sometimes controversial ideas?

Part 3—Literary terms

Directions: Discuss in what ways both of these terms might apply to the F451 world. Bullet your thoughts.

• Utopia: a place of ideal perfection, especially in laws, government, and social conditions

• Dystopia: imaginary, often futuristic, world in which the desire for perfection produces wretched or tortuous consequences; usually associated with totalitarian governmental systems and loss of freedoms

Part 4—Beatty’s world view

• I have listed the main ideas of Beatty’s speech, and grouped them into sets. Discuss whether these statements are true. That is, in what ways is the modern USA like the F451 world that Beatty describes? Are we heading in the same direction?

• For each set of main ideas, rate it from 1 to 5, and in a short paragraph, explain why you say this.

o 1 = Not at all true in the real world TO 5 = Totally true in the real world

• Bonus for using short, relevant quotes from Beatty’s speech in your writing! Make sure you use proper citation format and weave the quotes into your writing.

Beatty’s Main Ideas:

Set 1

1. When life was slower, people used to have time for books.

2. Once we had the technology for photography, motion pictures, radio and television, everything got faster and no one had the patience for books.

3. The kinds of ideas one used to find in books were cut down, simplified into shorter and shorter versions.

Set 2

4. People started caring only about easy pleasure and lost interest in knowledge.

5. Technology started to do even more for us; life got even faster and no one had time for quiet thinking anymore.

6. Advertising sold people more and more sports and vacations, and entertainment got dumber and dumber.

Set 3

7. Minorities complained loudly whenever they were offended.

8. To protect profits, companies stopped selling anything controversial.

9. Intellectual people, who questioned the way things were going, became the enemies because they were different from everyone else.

10. The pressure to be the same came, at first, from the people themselves.

11. Books became weapons, and firemen became the “custodians of our peace of mind” (59).

12. There are too many people to risk offending anyone—we must keep everyone happy, serene, peaceful.

13. In fact, we no longer allow anything that upsets people.

Set 4

14. Still, some people insist on being different. School can help with this problem—education stuffs people full of useless facts that don’t matter, and then they feel informed.

15. Plus, we provide plenty of entertainment, including sports, sex, drugs, and exciting events.

Set 5

16. Books are useless and evil because they confuse people & make them unhappy and none of the authors agree with each other anyway.

17. Ideas are dangerous because they stir people up and make them upset. If society is to stop unhappiness, it cannot give people two sides to contemplate.

Beatty’s last thought – response not required

18. Eventually, every fireman wants to read the books, but really the books say nothing.

All finished? Well done! Hand in the work. Now, read my “Beatty’s Speech – Muza response,” which explains a lot about the world of the novel and how it connects to the real world.

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