Mrs.Abbott
Honors English 10A (1)
7 October 2015
Governmental Obedience
Rollo May portrays conformity when he states “... the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice but conformity”. A society displays conformity when it follows a specific set of rules making all people identical in what they do. Using conformity to rule, the government within the society of the text, addresses conformity which monitors everything; from the way the people socialize and how the people live their daily lives. Similarly, in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, society is controlled by a government which requires the citizens to comply to the rules that are set by the government, and if these rules are infringed, major consequences are …show more content…
Mrs. Bowels is submissive towards the government and its policies. When Montag is reading a poem to Mildred and her friends, Mrs. Bowels says,” ...I’ve always said, poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings..,” displaying her hatred toward different ideas that go against the government’s ideals (Bradbury 109). This represents her enmity towards any contemporary ideas, she believes the context of books, try to influence the society because the poem Montag read goes against every aspect that the government wants the people to have. Being a conformist, Mrs. Bowels displays hatred towards anything that goes against the government’s outlook on how …show more content…
Phelps mirrors the wishes and rules of the government. While Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowels talk about about her marriage with Pete, she emotionlessly said,”Anyways, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that...He said, if I get killed off… get married again, and don’t think of me,” displaying her acclimatization to rules embedded by the government (Bradbury 91). Mrs. Phelps’ soliloquy demonstrates how much she is accustomed to the way the government manages the society with conformity because she portrays marriage how the government wants people to view it ;superfluous and disposable. As a conformist, Mrs. Phelps lives by the wishes of the government and that is the reason why she considers something sacred and valuable, replaceable and unimportant. Mrs. Phelps 's view on marriage shows that she is a follower of conformity because her mentality of carrying out things how the government want the people to execute them. Furthermore, when Montag read the poem about war to Mildred’s friends, Mrs. Phelps started,”...crying… and sobbed uncontrollably…,” displaying how much Mrs. Phelps is uneducated about what happens in the world because of the government 's conformity (Bradfbuyry 92). This demonstrates how much Mrs. Phelps is altered to meet the government 's ethics because when she starts to identify what she never knew about war she starts to cry, astonished of the truth. As someone who has been indoctrinated by conformity, the psychological impact of learning the