Short Responses

Trust

Author's note: This is the break-off piece from my prior response to Fahrenheit 451. This piece is about people putting their trust into others, and the downfall that can occur if that trust is abused. My main goal is word choice.

When we have doubts in ourselves and in the system, our last and strongest resort is to turn to someone you’ve put your complete trust in, to someone from whom betrayal seems impossible. These people have the quickest and easiest access to persuade you in any way. They are the ones who are supposed to protect us, teach us, and guide us. We must believe that our teachers, mentors, and government will do what’s in our best interest because that is their responsibility, what they are supposed to do. Sometimes, though, they abuse this.

In the setting of Fahrenheit 451, the government hides almost everything from its people. It serves up on a silver platter only everything they want people to know. Those people buy into it because of the other tradition that we are supposed to trust our government, but even that could go wrong. This is seen when Montag’s wife, Mildred, does nothing all day but “talk” to a program that the government provides. She knows nothing besides what is fed to her through the walls, and that’s exactly what is wanted. Even Montag, for a while, was within that oblivion.

When Clarisse comes into the picture, it makes him question everything. She tells him stories and makes him wonder, asks him questions like if he’s happy -- all things that are absurd to him. As he thinks about it though, more and more, for the first time in his life he wonders why. Clarisse provokes him to do some thought of his own -- the exact opposite that the government wants him to do. Questioning things often brings disappointment or more confusion, but eventually, it makes one more knowledgeable. Without it, we would become a vacuous people, living in oblivion. We need to keep clear in our minds that there’s never just one way of seeing things, which is why we have to wonder. Though we may not even notice, some things need to be questioned right now. If you can’t answer for yourself why you’re living this way, something must be done.


Questioning Why We Don't Question

Author's note: I responded to Fahrenheit 451 using the idea of why we as humans don't question certain things. In the book for a long time prior, Montag doesn't wonder about his job at all, but the appearance of Clarisse makes him think. This piece was originally longer, but grew into two separate pieces because my idea went off-course. I am focusing on making the idea of the piece clear. Also, the piece seems to have an abrupt end, but I decided to keep it there for now because it added something different stylistically to my piece, I thought. Tell me what you think.

Some things we just don’t question. For some reason, people sometimes do things just because. Because why? We do things everyday simply because it is what we are used to doing, whether it be right or wrong. Either way, we are ignorant to its purpose unless we actually question why we, or others do things. There are many reasons we don’t question things seemingly so unimportant.

Sometimes, we might find that something we’ve been doing our whole life is wrong.  The realization is usually brought on by another’s comment, and had they not said anything, you might have never known it wrong in the first place. An acquaintance might say you’re holding your pencil wrong. Most people hold it one way, the technical way, but some people just don’t learn that. Switching up your grip after years of writing one way might seem awkward and not right, so why would you want to switch?If we grow up, live, and manage doing something the same way, then what is wrong with it? We may think the answer is nothing.

Montag lives in a time where civilization is subdued to not assessing the government. The people are purposely distracted to hide what is true, and what is bad. For his whole life, Montag has been a fireman, but it’s a different kind of fireman than we know and what was originally intended. They are the opposite; instead of insuring safety and putting out the flames, they ignite buildings and the people within by command. These firemen have never known any different though, so it seems acceptable and almost impossible to imagine it the other way. They have done this their whole life, predecessors doing the same.

Another reason people don’t question things, is that there’s no reason to question a perfectly smooth system. If everyone goes along with it, is there anything wrong with the way it works? Seemingly, if everyone agrees with an idea, that must automatically make it true, and if it’s tradition, that makes it even more right. No one will go around and start to question something that’s been done longer than they’ve been around because they assume that if there were a problem, it would have already been spotted.

In the book, it doesn’t say how long firemen have been in dismay but it does say that it was long ago that they were still good. Montag joined the force long after that era was over. What he knew was that a fireman’s job is to burn any books they find, unknowingly destroying knowledge and truth. Most people in Montag’s time are brainwashed to believe that how they live is how it always was. They don’t ask why books are burned if they are supposed to be fiction anyways. Perhaps they think it’s tradition -- and there’ nothing wrong with tradition.