HUMN401-1101A-01 Literature and Film
Assignment Name: Unit 4 Discussion
January 26, 2011
The book and film of Fahrenheit 451 has a very strong and compelling message with a dire warning. I, myself, have for some time have notice the drastic changes in our society and how the governments not just in the United States but the whole world. As a Christian and a U.S. citizen, I take my freedoms seriously. They are important to me because I remember the ones who died and those who sacrifice to give us the freedoms we have today. I feel I have the same spirit to uphold these freedoms as my own, like any other American who values their freedom and liberty.
I believe that we can learn from the example of Guy Montag, Clarisse McClellan, and Professor Faber that we hunger for the same freedoms of living and thinking without the threat of a totalitarian government controlling our own affairs. Like those characters of the Fahrenheit 451 story, we will be in danger of losing those freedoms in the very near future if we do not exercise our rights of keeping the laws and commandments that guarantees our freedoms in a free republic society. We shouldn't be slaves to elites and the giants of government, mass media, and other institutions that conditions and brainwash us to passiveness and keep us subservient to meaningless and mindless entertainment, like television, video games, comics, and sports, over reading, spending quality time with family, and enjoying the outdoors and learning.
We would be in very much in danger of losing the freedoms we have now. In today's society we have become so complacent and desensitized to what is happening around us. Those who are in the know and understand what is going on behind the stage of the government and the tyrannical elites. Believe it or not, it is very real that the ones who have an agenda to control the general populace have to a point that they in their own thinking that most of the world problems are due to overpopulation and lack of natural resources. When America was first created as a nation, it was from the love of freedoms that the first immigrants, the Pilgrims came to the new land called America to practice these rights to worship God without being persecuted. When their freedoms became then by a foreign entity they once again took up the exercise of keeping those freedoms by fighting for them as Revolutionaries. During the time of war, great men meet together to create a document that for once and for all protect the rights of the freedom loving patriot.
Guy Montag in the Fahrenheit 451 story was a revolutionary in the future society he was molded into. First, a conformist for the government and loving his job he later began to realize that the suffering of others was wrong, and he longed for answers to why books needed to be burned, find the knowledge of he was seeking in the stolen books he read, and grow in the company Clarisse and Professor Faber who had love for life and freedom. It was more dangerous living in this society than the struggle for fighting for the freedom that one has. Once the government had the general populace under submission the freedom and liberty was gone forever. There are very few who found the path back to freedom was to dissent from that society and government and to live as a fugitive in happiness, truth, and free thought.
Most importantly there is a imminent reality that our intellectual freedoms will be lost. They can be vulnerable with the lack of keeping in check with those who desire in taking others individuals freedoms away. Why these freedoms are threat every day of our lives is due to the exercises of propaganda, deception, and evil to extinguish those freedoms from existence. Just by going to the reliable truthful sources of information available in a free society can prove by a shadow of a doubt that conspiracies to destroying freedoms of life, liberty, and happiness. Our freedoms are God-given gifts to be observed and practices as the Lord commanded it to be. Just like Jesus Christ, who suffered and died upon a cross, and rose again, two thousand years ago to set men free from sin so that they could enjoy the liberty of freedoms that He set in His Word, laws and commandments to keep our society free from harm and slavery from evil and tyranny.
The message is very relevant today, that if we do not practice the freedoms and laws given to us by others who had suffered to fight. Then why do we deserve to have them if we don't take a stand to keep our freedoms for future generations. It was in the words of Benjamin Franklin, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, said that if "we give up our freedoms for a little security we neither deserve freedom or security." It is for the love of this liberty and the love for one another that will conquer the threat of tyranny and lost freedom. Lord George Byron said it best, "the eternal spirit of the chainless mind brightens the darkest dungeon. Liberty, your habitation is the heart. The heart which loves of you alone can unite."
WORKS CITED
Byron, Lord George. Liberty Quotes. World of Quotes. Web. retrieved January 26, 2011. http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Liberty/index.html
Franklin, Benjamin. Benjamin Franklin Quotes. Think Exist. Web. retrieved January 26, 2011. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/anyone_who_trades_liberty_for_security_deserves/289390.html
Truffaut, François (Director). Truffaut, François & Richard, Jean_Louis (Screenwriters). Allen, Lewis M. (Producer). Fahrenheit 451 [Film], 1966. UK. Universal Pictures (USA).
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451 [50th Anniversary Edition]. Del Ray/Ballantine Books, New York. 1953, 1981.
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