At first glance, two dystopian novels, Fahrenheit 451 (F451) by Ray Bradbury and Anthem by Ayn Rand may not have common ground with the historical, influential, and inspirational autobiography the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. However, the main characters in each piece struggle to know. Frederick Douglass, a slave, details in a chapter entitled “Learning to Read and Write” how he faces grave opposition to his endeavor, yet eventually setting himself on a path to freedom. Montag the main character of F451 struggles with whether or not he should read books. He is a fireman who burns books for a living, but when an old lady stays in her house and burns to death for the books he starts to reconsider what’s really in books.
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There the Golden One and Equality live in a house that was from the Unmentionable times and they spend the rest of their lives there. The theme “Mankind is equipped with an innate yearning to seek wisdom and therefore free himself from the proverbial darkness of ignorance,” weaves throughout and appears as the cornerstone of Anthem, Fahrenheit 451, and “Learning to Read and Write.” Each of the main characters in all three sources exhibits a deep “Inner Yearning.” For example, Frederick Douglass writes that his mistress “commenced to instruct me…” but she “…ceased to instruct me…in teaching me the alphabet, [she] had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell” (Douglass 100-102). Douglass’ antiquated expression denotes the modern day “ give me an inch, I’ll take a mile.” Once Douglass learned a little bit of the alphabet, the desire to learn is planted deep within his soul and nothing can …show more content…
One day he stumbles upon something from the unmentionable times and finds a light bulb “We found wires that led to strange little globes of glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than a spider’s web,” (Rand 54). Equality takes it to the scholars and they are in shock that he disobeyed them and they will not let him become one of them so he runs into the woods and the Golden One follows him and they live in a house in the woods that was from the unmentionable times. “The house had two stories and a strange roof flat
There the Golden One and Equality live in a house that was from the Unmentionable times and they spend the rest of their lives there. The theme “Mankind is equipped with an innate yearning to seek wisdom and therefore free himself from the proverbial darkness of ignorance,” weaves throughout and appears as the cornerstone of Anthem, Fahrenheit 451, and “Learning to Read and Write.” Each of the main characters in all three sources exhibits a deep “Inner Yearning.” For example, Frederick Douglass writes that his mistress “commenced to instruct me…” but she “…ceased to instruct me…in teaching me the alphabet, [she] had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell” (Douglass 100-102). Douglass’ antiquated expression denotes the modern day “ give me an inch, I’ll take a mile.” Once Douglass learned a little bit of the alphabet, the desire to learn is planted deep within his soul and nothing can …show more content…
One day he stumbles upon something from the unmentionable times and finds a light bulb “We found wires that led to strange little globes of glass on the walls; they contained threads of metal thinner than a spider’s web,” (Rand 54). Equality takes it to the scholars and they are in shock that he disobeyed them and they will not let him become one of them so he runs into the woods and the Golden One follows him and they live in a house in the woods that was from the unmentionable times. “The house had two stories and a strange roof flat