Examples Of Utilitarianism In Fahrenheit 451

In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, it focuses on a society of distractions. These distractions can range from subtle mechanisms such as television walls, to more forceful means of interaction such as the burning of books to prevent the spread of knowledge. All of these minor mechanisms of control have to stem from somewhere: a corrupted government. Because the government cannot control society by themselves, they use the most important mechanism of control they have: the firefighters. In other words, this method is ultimately the destruction of knowledge. The firefighters that Bradbury has created in this dystopian society exercise their power in different ways among various characters in the novel. The government’s mechanisms …show more content…
The stronger characters of the novel however, do not perish to the corrupt government, but attempt to break free and fight the system of the destruction of knowledge. Knowledge is the source of all power. The mindset that the government holds in this novel is to obtain all knowledge; therefore they have all the power and control over society. Clarisse McClellan is the perfect example of a minor character in this novel, but also play one of the biggest roles. Bradbury creates Clarisse McClellan to influence the other characters of the dystopian novel to fight the system of the burning of books, mainly Guy Montag, who he himself was a firefighter. The corruption of the government and the incinerating of book pages never directly affected the thinking mechanisms of Clarisse. When Clarisse first met Montag, she asked him endless questions about his life as a firefighter, his happiness, and love. Clarisse was constantly adamant about learning and obtaining as much knowledge as she could, while at the same time not being afraid that Montag could expose her for being knowledgeable. Montag described her as “the eager …show more content…
It is an extremely safe assumption that Mildred was the character affected most by the firefighters. Married to a firefighter, she knew how wrong it was to read books and obtain the information in them. Mildred acquires an inside look in the mechanisms of control of the firefighter system, because she is married to one. Like Beatty, Mildred is brainwashed into believing that the burning of books is ethical, not because she wants control and power, but because she is oblivious to what is going on around her. When Mildred discovers that Montag has brought books into the house, her mind completely shut down and looked bewildered at the thought of the books. She was not willing to read and discover what was inside of the books to obtain the knowledge; power frightened her. She would frantically try and convince Montag that what he was doing was wrong. “What does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything! The Captain was right!” (Bradbury 65). Eventually, Mildred caused her downfall by turning her husband in to Captain Beatty for what he was doing. She followed the norm of the government instead of trusting her husband in his beliefs. Mildred also contributed to the death of Beatty due to her naiveté of turning Montag in to the authorities. She believed that her way of thinking was correct and turning in Montag to the other firefighters was the best option for