Hola Amigos! Well, i have thought of some ideas and or topics to discuss during our next discussion.
-Image of fireman created in the book
- On page 34 the qoute, "First fireman. Benjamin Franklin- Established, 1790, to Burn English-influenced books in the Colonies."
- And another qoute on page 36 "You weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things... things felt nothing, things don't scream or whimper.. there was nothing to tease your conscience later."
Be ready to discuss these topics!!!
20 comments:
Hey Jo! So I layed out today and decided to read the book and so I finished it today! Uplifting? Not so much... we should burn it! AHHHHHH just kidding, get it like in the book, if anything was uncomfortable it was bad... okay.
I have noticed some main themes:
1) If you have a strong conviction about something you are closed minded and thus need to be silenced. Books encourage and help to create this, so books too need to go.
2) When people sacrifice freedom on the altar of security, they take on the guilt just as much as the government. that takes away that freedom.
3)if we don't keep our minds occupied and thinking about worthwhile things, out hearts will follow.
Okay so thats what i have thought of and we can talk about it tomorrow at discussion!
Okay so lets talk themes shall we? I thought of 3 and posted them above! What do all y'all think?
I know I am not as far in the book as everyone else so bear with me :) I would say that a definate theme that is coming up is the whole knowledge is power thing. It's like the government wants to keep you stupid so that you don't have any power and so they can just kind of control you. Another thing, from what I understand our country in this book is at war, and from the sounds of it, we are in a world war??? They constantly talk about the bombers flying over head(maybe that's a symbol???) But ya are we in a WWIII?
Ok so i have read up to the third part in the book. so far i was very confused with what is happening in the second part of the book. i do get the old man and how montag met him. however i have not found the significance of this character. some of the themes that i have found in this book are Power, Freedom, and Fear.
I have seen that the government in this book has power over the people by controlling what they can and cannot do.
i have also notices a theme of freedom, the citizens what freedom to read book but the government will not give this freedome to them
The last theme that i noticed was fear, the citizens fear the government on how controlling the government is in this book.
Adding to my whole Knowledge is power thing, if you read like at the end of part 2, Montag is like going freak out on Mildred and her friends beuase they are so stupid and have no clue about anything. They talk about how they choose what presidential canidate to vote for based on what he looks like. I thought Mildred and her friends in this whole scene were a perfect example of how people have become so dummed down, and now will just sit and do whatever they are told and believe whatever the government tells them that they should believe...there's this whole thing of how it is "fun" to sit around and do nothing, or murder and run over dogs in your jet cars...ya that's pretty much all I can think of to say right now...
okay so on page 58, beatty is speaking to Montag about how those with knowlege are like loaded guns. They can cause others to not be happy. They sacrificed freedom, for "happiness" but are they really happy? Or just blinded by their own numbness? Montag finally came out of the haze of unintelligance and realized he wasn't happy, just ignorant. Like in the Matrix the bad guy says "ignorance is bliss" that may be true, but I have seen a major theme in this book that though one may be happy in ignorance for a while, after a period of time you get a feeling of emptiness the need for more and more. Millie is a perfect example of this. Montag begins to feel empty unfulfilled and decides to find out why, to search for something better. Others like millie cling harder to ignorance and security, Millie's need for the "fourth wall" for constant noise from "the parlor family" or the seashells to drown out the emptiness in her heart and head.
JOE!!!!!!!!!! WHY AREN'T YOU BLOGGING!!!!
I don't think that these people are really happy, I mean it's like someone who's drugged up after a surgery, if you asked them if they were happy, they'd probably say ya...but i think once they woke up they would tell you how they would much rather be awake and live life, then lay in a hospital bed half unconcience. So ya, these people I believe are not happy, they are just under the illusion that they are happy because they don't know anything else (atleast the younger ones-the old folks can remember what it used to be like)
i am look on my main page morgan
Alrighty, I have had a revelation!!!!!!!
So as I posted on Jo's site, a major trend that i am seeing is the idea that ignorance is bliss, for only a little while. Like the gilded age, everything appears pretty and good, but on the inside it stinks. Like Montag was saying how could he possibly keep smiling when he felt so horrible and empty on the inside. This is a theme i think we should build on, i was thinking maybe we should get a glass jar and maybe "bejewel" it, but fill it with gross dirt of Kitty Litter (clean not used Yuck).
YES! we have to do that!
We could also burry things in the cat litter, like a representation of a brain, becuase now people are not supposed to think, so basically their brains and thinking abilities have been cast out the window
ok i would agree with that maby try to symbolize tth burning of somthing a little more like burnt paper sticking out
Going off on what nick was saying, i get really confused sometimes in this book, because there are a lot of dreams and flashbacks, and just random stuff happening. So i have to keep re-reading everything, which actually helps. I think the third part will hopefully make more sense. However, i am grasping concepts of themes and all that good stuff.
Yeah Nice idea Morgan. We should discuss that next time, more thoughly.
not at all unlike the days when those of another color were neither respected nor recognized as human beings, this is a time in which people are not merely ignorant. it is not merely the case that they do not want to change. it is that they cannot conceive that change is even possibe. the idea that books are for burning has even overtaken the slightest curiosity that there is a reason for burning the books, that there is something worth keeping in those books.
so I am thinking what if we stuck stuff inside the kitty litter or dirt. Things that would be going against the idea of the gilded age like speaking your mind. I was going to do a newspaper article and burn the edges so it was like silencing free speach.
And then you know those telepromters that they use in news studios? Well we could each write one page of that kind of thing like of the news, putting in anything that is going on in our fictional or real society, then we put all of our pages together and "edit it " with red pen crossing out anything that could possibly be controversial or make people "unhappy". This demonstrates how the government could regulate free speach, even truth.
or we could just take a sharpie to the page and write random words like 'fire' and 'literature' in the blanks
i just have to say that its cool that you guys can say that i never add anything to the conversation, and then yourselves NEVER POST ANYTHING FOR THREE DAYS! So i guess i will start off the next round of ideas with a commentary on the current project of choice, the jar or (not used) kitty litter. while this a great metaphor for the good-looking-on-the-outside, ugly-on-the-inside theme of the book, i just have to point out that you can see the kitty litter from the outside now, so there is not just one idea for our project, i have come up with another idea (and yes there is such a thing) would be to paint a box on the outside with a diorama of the outside world, with trees, etc. and have a little figurine sitting on the inside watching tv (painted on the inside of the box; we could even paint 3 or 4 walls to look like tv's to make it more like the book). this is in obvious reference to the book, but it also encompasses the entire book, in that it shows the major effects of censorship in the story, in a more literal than artistic way.
Reflection-
I don't know if we are supposed to do a reflection here or not, so I will anyway. I thought that we did a good job discussing today, and we didn't get off topic like at all. Also we (meaning Morgan) came up with some great ideas for our 3-D sculpture thing, and I think that is really good, becuase I know I have not been able to really come up with anything at all. I thought overall we did a good job of finding themes, and relating the whole, if you don't have knowledge of things then you can't expect to really go anywhere in life. Pretty much all of us posted and stayed up with things, and like I said we didn't get off topic which is good. I would have thought we would've started talking about something else since we were online, but we didn't!
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