Fahrenheit 451

After reading Fahrenheit 451 for the third time, 2nd for school, I think I'm finally starting to get what Bradbury is saying. I think he's trying to convey that our society need to question what our government does, not be perfect little sheep spending all day with the 'family' or out driving 150 miles per hour and hitting small animals for fun. It's insane, the dystopian society of Bradbury's fictional future. All day people sit in their living rooms, laughing, crying and being angry with the 'family'. My perception of what the 'family' is are a bunch of random programs but mainly sitcoms. Bradbury tells about clowns hacking off each others limbs, or of rockets exploding into rainbows of colors; it doesn't make any sense. If the people of Fahrenheit, the majority at least, had half a mind they would stand up, turn off the 'family' and read a book. Even though reading books is illegal, if everyone had books and read them, there would be nothing that the government could do. Burn them? Sure, but you would have to burn millions of people's of homes, billions perhaps (I'm not sure of the population of that day). What then; everyone would be dead and America would collapse; if it hadn't already from the nuclear war.
I think that if anyone would rebel and think for themselves it would be Clarisse McClellan. Her aunt and uncle sit in rocking chairs and talk daily into the night. She was taught to think freely, to question, to rebel if you wish. I believe that Clarisse was killed because of that. She was walking one night and BAM! she gets hit by some dumb teenagers going "Hur Hur, fun!" It's barbaric.
Lastly, when war breaks out, society just stares as the world goes up in flames. All of it's material gains vanish at the push of a button. Show's them right.

Ray Bradbury

When Bradbury first wrote Fahrenheit 451 it only took him 18 days in a library basement with a typewriter to flush out the dystopian future where the majority of society is ignorant to the knowledge within books.
I think that Bradbury's major motivators were the failing education system and when Hitler and the Nazis were burning books in Berlin. Bradbury wrote through his characters. Bradbury's characters wrote themselves, as he put it. Bradbury probably felt that he needed to write a novel where the main character rebels against society and its ignorant ways. Clarisse was the spirit that people needed to have; curious, questioning and positive.
I definitely think that if our society keeps heading the same way it's going, that we could very well end up like the the society in Fahrenheit 451; ignorant and uncaring. I believe that Bradbury wrote this novel as a warning to our society; if we keep heading in the same direction, we will burn to the ground.

The Final Frontier......

Today was the first time I have ever watched Star Trek other than the newest movie. I was really captured by the way the Gene Roddenberry project all kinds of new technologies 45 years ago. Flip communicators are easily seen as cell phones. Phasers*(?) are something that we are decades, perhaps centuries away from, and yet Roddenberry dreamed it and projected it into Star Trek. Another interesting piece of technology was the transporter. When I first saw the transporter in the movie I thought to myself, "Wow, that would be awesome!" To think of something that ingenious back in the 60's is unheard of. "Space: The Final Frontier", on July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Star Trek had already gone interplanetary, to other galaxies, everywhere. Originally airing in 1966, Star Trek must have been influenced by the writings of Robert E. Heinlein when he wrote Starship Trooper a futuristic novel, they were off on different planets in powered armor, jet-packing. Bad ass. I do give Gene Roddenberry credit for giving scientists inventive new ideas. I don't think we would have cell phones if we didn't have Gene Roddenberry.
So, all in all, I think Roddenberry influenced the technology that we have today, and continues to challenge out scientist with his old ideas of space travel and matter transport. Oh, and lasers.

To Kill a Mockingbird Part 1

Part 1 of To Kill a Mockingbird is enthralling! The deep characters, the language, and the awesome setting. This book is an amazing piece of writing. Between Atticus, Jem, and Scout, Maycomb is up to it britches in awesome.

Atticus is a great father figure in that he represents good qualities for his children to emulate. Because of Atticus, Scout and Jem are influenced in the right way, such as manners, and way to act in social situations. Although he lets his children be generally free, he keeps them in check when it comes to manners, church, and social outings.
Jem tries to be a "gentleman", in the traditional sense, but he has too much pride in his family to be a traditional gentleman. Jem will get in someone's face if they insult his father or any of his family for that matter. If Jem doesn't like something, he'll say so. Just like Scout.
Scout speaks her mind, whether for better, or worse. Part of the reason scout speaks her mind is most likely because she doesn't know better. Little kids like her are prone to saying things that are obvious but no one wants to point out. Scout is very innocent in that sense. When Dill tells her that they are going to get married, she goes along with it.

The characters in To Kill a Mockingbird really capture the essence of Part 1. Scout and her bluntness, Jem being headstrong, and Atticus being a great father figure, all make up a colorfull cast of individuals. They all stand out in their own way, giving the story more.

The Great Gatsby

The way characters treated, reacted to, and thought about one another (whether openly or not) fascinated me. When Nick is evaluating Tom and Daisy's relationship, he questions Tom's faithfulness when he gets a call during dinner from, "Some woman in New York", as Ms. Baker says. When Daisy and Tom return to the table, they are exceptionally quiet about what happened. More likely they didn't want to fight in front of house guests but they might be saving their rage at each other for another fight.

Mr Gatsby is another interesting personality in The Great Gatsby. Since he lives alone, except for a butler, he might seem secluded when he isn't having extravagant parties with people he doesn't know. He invites people he knows to the parties, but people show up that weren't invited. They just show up and blend in with the crowd. The fact that Mr. Gatsby either doesn't care or doesn't notice is strange. I'm sure he's glad to meet new people but that would become bothersome after a while. People showing up at your parties, drinking your drink, eating your food, completely uninvited.

Mr. Gatsby begins to become strange later on, firing all of his servants. His reasoning was that they were spreading rumors. He only had one servant then, besides his butler. He had someone deliver food, but no one to clean his kitchen. Daisy visited him and she said that the dishes were piled in the kitchen. At this point I questioned Gatsby's mental state and pondered why he did that.

Late Grapes of Wrath

Tom Joad begins the novel as a person who focuses his energy in the here and now. He believes the future is somewhat of an illusion. So, he lives in the moment, not really thinking too much foreword. Granted, he changes over the course of the novel, thinking more of the family's future, putting himself after the good of the family.

Ma Joad emerges as the leader of the family, feeling that the family needs someone to lead them since Pa isn't very much up to it anymore. Her attitude is resilient and strong, she takes control. I believe that Ma feels that the family would fail without her even though they wouldn't. This factor of pride keeps her strong.

The Character Rose of Sharon, is a caring, nurturing soul who cares for the well being of others. She shows this by feeding the weakened man in the barn at the end of the novel. Her doing this might have ment saving the man's life.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin

I really enjoyed this novel, I thought it had fascinating dialogue, great diction and was overall just enjoyable. I really connect with Tom Sawyer because he reminds me of my best friend Elliott. Elliott is always coming up with something new and inventive (like Tom did with starting the robbers group). He always has an answer for some strange question or a wacky solution for a problem. Tom always steps up to the plate and leads people. When Tom says they'll take people and ransom them and Ben Rogers asks him what that is and he replies "I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so of course that's what we got to do." This piece of dialogue made me laugh and it showed a little piece of Tom's boldness. He doesn't know what he's going to do, but he going to do it anyway!

The dialogue of Tom Sawyer took me a little while to get used to, due to words such as 'Warn't', 'hain't', or 'whar'. Once I got over the way they talked I really enjoyed how the characters interacted with one another. I particularly enjoyed the conversation between Huck and Jim when Huck returns to the raft on page 83. The conversation that ensues is priceless. Huck wakes Jim up and Jim is talking wild about how he's so glad Huck is back and they start talking about if he was gone, and the canoe and eventually I could barely understand it because of the diction used. All of the cut off words, and slurs made it an interestingly painful read.

Because of these two factors is the reason I enjoyed Huck Fin so much. All of the dialogue and diction kept me enthralled to the end. Jim, Tom, and Huck really made this book for me. I think that if the diction had been any different back then, I think the book would have bored me.