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Fahrenheit 451
CENSORSHIP vs FREEDOM OF SPEECH
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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury convening thread
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Clarisse stri..."
Dear friends, why don't we move the discussion of the overarching roles of the characters to the final thread rather, where we don't have to worry about tiptoeing around spoilers?
I have replied to Whitney's post here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Traveller wrote: "Whitney wrote: "Cecily wrote: " I see what you mean: in both cases, the woman opens the eyes of the man to other possibilities. However, the two women themselves could hardly be more different. ......"That was my impression from the first section, I haven't started part 2 yet.
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Oh, I see! I wasn't too sure what you'd meant by "early example".
My reply is maybe more with reference to the story as a whole, though . Okay, well, that post will actually be good to discuss once we get to the end, because then we can discuss whether our perceptions had changed after reading all of the novel.
Nah, I just meant because the term was originally coined in 2007 to refer to a certain kind of women who was common in some movies. Catch you on the flip-side, then!
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Catch you on the flip-side, then!"
Yes, Julia from 1984 has also been accused of belonging to this stereotype, but I don't think the women in these books have quite the same function. ...but hold that thought - let's discuss that a bit later on. :)
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If he is a mouthpiece for Bradbury, our modern age must have driven poor old Bradbury completely nutty!
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"“It’s not just the woman that died,” said Montag. “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I’ve used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I’d never even thought that thought before.” He got out of bed.
“It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! It’s all over.”
I highlighted both those passages in my notes - but I didn't include them in my review. I guess I was enjoying the book so much, I made more allowance for the fact it was written in the very early 1950s, when "man" was more commonly used in that way. (I'm not saying you're wrong to call it out or feel as you do.)
I highlighted that too. Sadly, I'm sure we've had this same discussion before...
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Hold on, he was not saying "man" as in "humans" he clearly said A man...
I was also going to say that Montag/Beatty/Bradbury reminds me of Theodor W. Adorno who did a great deal of whinging about mass media and about modern music. :P
He did, but in the fifties it was pretty normal to say "a man" when you meant "a person." It doesn't make it right, and really the unthinking sexism is the only part that I find badly dated. I keep thinking "wow, how did he see that coming...", though I also think that it's partly just the reverse side of the "back in my day..." coin. He was seeing a trend that, to us looking back, hardly seemed to have got off the ground, but is obvious now.
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I must agree with him that yes, a lot of the postmodern is indeed just empty surface, and (mass) consumerism, capitalism, globalism and greed is all intermingled with it.
..and believe you me; if I could somehow engineer a more sparsely populated globe without having to hurt anybody, I would do it in a flash....
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And.. he doesn't like sport because it doesn't make you think? I suppose chess doesn't make you think either - I suppose that kind of thinking is too mechanical; not philosophical enough. But why does doing sport have to preclude critical thinking? Surely one can be a balanced person, and do sport, leisure, work AND philosophizing? Maybe he feels that all the blood has to go to the brain at all times. ;)
I agree that "man" or "a man" was used to represent people in general back then, but there was a lot of implicit sexism in the use, even if it was standard to do so. Anyone who has seen or heard Bradbury speak in real life on these matters knows that he was an inveterate sexist (beyond what is 'normal' for his age, before someone drags out that tired old excuse for him). Thankfully, he toned it down considerably in his writing. I don't know if he was condemning all sports per se, but was condemning them being promoted as replacements for individual thought. But it did come off as a as a rather strident, general condemnation of people who play sports. I imagine he was thinking of Nazi Germany or the Eastern Block countries that put such a premium on physical fitness while banning or burning books.
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Much as I agree with many of Bradbury's sentiments, Montag and Beatty come across as two real "grumpy old men" (and they happen to remind me of a real old grumpy grandpa in our family who complains about all these "new-fangled" goodies that just "go right over his head". ::P
It is easy to picture him waving a cane and yelling "why don't you damn kids get off my lawn and go home and read a book?!"
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Okay, that really made me actually laugh out loud! XD Yes, exactly! "You gawd-darn kids with yo'rn loud boom-boom noise that you call music and your mindless sports!"
I don't want to know what he thought later of kids walking around playing games with their phones and the earphones in - okay, but one does have to admit that it's not very social. Still, the way it is expressed in the book makes me think of a crusty old grump. :)
In terms of the content of the book itself (rather than Bradbury's personal views), I was more put off by what I saw as explicit misogyny in 1984 than Montag's archaic and casual masculinisation (or whatever you want to call it). But it's a tricky and sensitive issue where we all react differently.
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The difference was that in 1984, it was the character being misogynistic which appeared to me, to be a necessary part of the story, without it being obvious that the author himself is sexist. In Fahrenheit, the author seems to see everything from the male viewpoint as if males are the only real flesh and blood beings of substance, whereas the females (so far, anyway) appear to me like paper-thin devices.
To me sexism via exclusion is a big deal, maybe because it had heavily impacted me in my own life. But as you say, each to his/her own.
On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
1984 (other topics)Year of the Tiger (other topics)
Rock Paper Tiger (other topics)
Clarisse strikes me as an early example of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Apparently the term has made it into the Oxford Dictionaries: "a type of female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky, whose main purpose within the narrative is to inspire a greater appreciation for life in a male protagonist"