Please select a quotation / short excerpt from the 1st part of Fahrenheit 451 and do a (literary) text analysis as best you can. This is your time for trial and error. Please use the comments box!
"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind." (pag 58 ou 62, não tenho o livro na minha presença).
O Capitão Beatty diz estas linhas no final do capítulo “The Hearth and the Salamander”, enquanto conta a história dos bombeiros a Montag. É importante notar que todo o discurso de Beatty possui um tom Irónico. Ele defende a destruição de autenticidade num discurso apaixonado, num tom cheio de remorsos. Ele está disposto a defender a homogeneizar da sociedade enquanto se mantém a ele próprio educado, denunciando o uso de livros como armas mas usando os livremente para ganho próprio. Beatty é das personagens mais complexas no livro, ele usa a sua mente educada por livros (a sua arma predileta), para manipular impiedosamente Montag. Pode-se também argumentar, se terá Beatty escolhido o seu trabalho após ter perdido a fé nos livros ou, para ter acesso legal aos livros perante a sua posição enquanto agente de autoridade (Chefe dos Bombeiros).
"One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire, One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. (...)"
Neste excerto de texto, Montag acabou de por a sua mulher na cama, que momentos antes estava a ter uma lavagem estomacal. Enquanto ela está a dormir com sossego, Montag fica na cama a ouvir a chuva antes de adormecer. Com a enumeração dos pingos de chuva, cada uma representa uma pessoa ou um evento à Montag. À medida que se avança no parágrafo, há a alusão que a velocidade dos pingos aumenta. Começa com as frases curtas que depois juntam-se a pouco a pouco com a repetição da contagem dos números e dos elementos que lhes correspondem. Naquele momento, a chuva podia representar o estado caótico da mente de Montag. Em pouco tempo, acabou de conhecer uma pessoa nova que radicalizou a maneira como ele pensava e também passou por um evento traumático. Ele tem dificuldade de processar tudo que se está passar à sua volta. Mais tarde no texto, a chuva terá um significado mais positiva quando se encontra com a Clarisse outra vez, que está a caminhar e a beber a chuva.
Page 16 When Montag met Clarisse for the first time and they are somewhere in the second half of their conversation. "You think too many things," said Montag, uneasily. "I rarely watch the 'parlour walls' or go to races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last." "I didn't know that!" Montag laughed abruptly. "Bet I know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning." He suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable. I like this passage and how it talks about how we don’t think anymore, because we watch TV and go to amusement parks instead and we don’t even notice the nature, because advertisements occupy more space and they are more eye catching. (In my reading, this situation is not a distant future, it is happening now. We are alienating the nature and ourselves only to spend our lives by living in an illusion, by choosing to look only at the altered, photo shopped and scripted version of reality.) Clarisse somehow escapes this frame of existence. She does not accept to simply passively watch what is being fed to her, she prefers to spend time by developing her "crazy thoughts.“ She also dares to physically escape the town to explore what is beyond it. And she is fascinated by the changing format of advertising, which is summed up so nicely – our lives are getting so much faster and consequently the ads need to be longer. I think that what is so lovable about Clarisse is most of all her curiosity. How she does not readily accept things for a fact, but she likes to learn about the history and why things are no longer the same they used to be. I also like the way Montag’s reactions are succinctly described. From the few words – uneasily, laughed abruptly, quite irritable – you can perfectly feel how his attitude is changing.
«Her tongue was moving in her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be trying to remembre something, and then they remembered na her tongue moved again: “Play the man, Mas ter Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!”»
This is a historical allusion. On October 16, 1555 a man named Latimer said the same sentence to Nicholas Ridley, as they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy. Both of them were Protestants who wanted to deepen the protestant religion in England, even though it was against the will of Queen Mary.
This historical allusion used by Bradbury has the purpose of showing how prompt the lady was to die, and concequently burn for her books. Her predisposition for defending what she believed in, makes evident the aversion of what the firemen were doing by destroying her home and books. This action enhanced the already baffled Montag into an even more perturbed state.
This also showed Beatty’s former interest and knowledge in books when he explained the statement she said to the fireman.
Page 47 "He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying 'Didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?'"
Before this quotation, Montag was a man of duty. He wouldn't question or wonder until He met Clarisse who a is curious girl about anything. Montag was listening her questions one of them is about firemen's job before fire-proofed houses.Montag have an interested in the girl's different point of view.The girl's questions and comments effected him; That's why, After he glanced a line of book because of curiousity,he started to think about his job's aim. This thought leads him to take a book instead of burning it.
I think first part of the book is about questioning, He meets a different little girl, He realizes that he hasn't got a marriage based on life, He witnesses a woman willing to die with her books and these actions leads him to question. Therefore, I think this quotation is important for part one.
Pág. 75: ‘More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don’t have to think, eh? Organize and organize and super-organize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns run into motels, people in nomadic surges from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this noon and I the night before.’
No parágrafo apresentado, Beatty começa por descrever a condição de várias personagens de Fahrenheit 451, que vivem dominadas pela abundância de estímulos sensoriais, de informação e de entretenimento, característicos do pós-modernismo, que dispersam a atenção, ao mesmo tempo que impedem cada indivíduo de experienciar momentos de profunda concentração e contemplação (“you don’t have to think, eh?”). Este excesso é tornado explícito através da repetição das palavras “more”, “sports”, “organize” e do prefixo “super-”, ao mesmo tempo que o ritmo acelerado da intervenção de Beatty, devido à quantidade de informação que é dardejada, às ditas repetições e à utilização de estruturas paralelas, acaba também por saturar a mente do próprio leitor com estímulos excessivos. Após a sua descrição alucinante, Beatty torna claros os efeitos dessa desatenção ao afirmar “The mind drinks less and less. Impatience.”. Este ponto de viragem no tom do discurso torna-se claro através do contraste da repetição da palavra “less” com as anteriores frases iniciadas pela palavra “more”. A opressão do espírito inquisitivo do Homem levou à destruição da sua individualidade e à criação de multidões (“everyone”, “group spirit”, “crowds” e “Towns”) profundamente insatisfeitas, que, de forma impaciente, procuram esquecer o seu descontentamento. Ao manterem-se num estado de perpétuo movimento (“people in nomadic surges”), estas multidões são associadas à noção da estrada (“Highways”, “gasoline refugee” e “motels”), espaço intimamente ligado ao conceito da mobilidade, oferecendo, assim, uma oportunidade de evasão. Contudo, esta é frustrada, tornando a condição do “refugiado” ainda mais infeliz, este viaja sem um verdadeiro destino (“following the moon tides”) na esperança de escapar à sua própria infelicidade. A manifesta ansiedade (“run into”) e natureza interminável desta fuga sem rumo torna-se clara através da repetição da palavra “somewhere” seguida da palavra “nowhere”, que, por sua vez, subverte as espectativas do leitor e fá-lo experienciar a frustração destas multidões. A frase final apresenta diversas assonâncias (“moon”, “room”, “noon” e “tides”, “tonight”, “I”, “night”) assim como aliterações (“tides”, “tonight”, “slept”, “night”) que expressam o movimento contínuo destas pessoas que se substituem umas às outras nos motéis sem a criação de quais quer laços ou vínculos entre si, demonstrando o quão mecanizado e fragmentado o Homem se tornou.
"You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn."
This short excerpt demonstrates a clear contrast between Faber and the rest of the characters in the novel. In a society where difference is regarded as something dangerous, Faber was able to survive. He calls it cowardice and yet he does act courageous, at times. In this case Faber is trying to get through to Montag, to calm him and reassure him that what he did before and what he might do in the future won't be perfect and that he would welcome his mistakes, for they are good teachers. He then gives his own example. His use of the word "Man" is to show Montag and the reader that in the short time they spent together a bond was formed and they are now friends and partners in the crime of loving books. Faber also likes using metaphors to explain how his knowledge, or lack thereof got him into trouble "They beat me with sticks". His ignorance, once a blunt instrument, gave way to knowledge, his now sharpened blade. Faber concludes his reasoning stating that one cannot hide his ignorance, doing so will prevent one from learning. Unlike everyone else in this dystopian society, Montag needed to take chances and make mistakes so that he could learn.
"It was not burning; it was warming! He saw many hands held to its warmth, hands without arms, hidden in darkness. Above the hands, motionless faces that were only moved and tossed and flickered with firelight. He hadn't known fire could look this way. He had never thought in his life that it could give life as well as take. Even its smell was different. How long he stood he did not know, but there was a foolish and yet delicious sense of knowing himself as an animal come from the forest, drawn by the fire. He was a thing of brush and liquid eye, of fur and muzzle and hoof, he was a thing of horn and blood that would smell like autumn if you bled it out on the ground. He stood a long long time, listening to the warm crackle of the flames. There was a silence gathered all about that fire and the silence was in the men's faces, and time was there, time enough to sit by this rustling track under the trees, and look at the world and turn it over with the eyes, as if it were held to the centre of the bonfire, a piece of steel these men were all shaping. It was not only the fire that was different. It was the silence. Montag moved toward this special silence that was concerned with all of the world." (pg 187, Harper Collins ed)
As a reader, getting to know Montag’s story of his quest for freedom, was constantly an unnerving experience, there was always this feeling of anxiety, because there was the permanent fear of things not going as planned, the risk of getting caught, the constant disappointment in human relations, whether it was an indifferent wife, losing a dear friend or hating a foe. However, in this passage of the book, Montag experiences a new side to two elements present in his life before, in a completely different way. The fire, which he and his colleagues used to suppress knowledge, to intimidate curiosity and to take life from those who sought to break free, now did exactly the opposite, it provided those people with the warmth they needed to carry on fighting, to help them learn and ask questions. The silence, that before meant the presence of his apathetic wife, or his reaction to Captain Beatty’s provocations, now was peaceful and helped everything seem more alive. In this excerpt, Montag truly experiences nature, just like Clarisse did, in an innocent and primal way, with all the weight lifted off of his shoulders, ready for a new beginning.
« One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, the uncle. Four, fire,One Mildred, two Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping-tablets, men, disposable tissue, coattails, blow, wad, flush, Clarisse, Mildred, Uncle, fire, tablets , tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, three, One, two, three ! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano. All rushing on down around in a spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning. 'I don't know anything anymore' »
This is an extract taken from the first part of Farenheit 451 page 27. This passage is a turning point in Montag's life. He is lost, and he starts asking questions about burning books and the society. It is happening just after he realized that Mildred had taken too much pills. He is shocked by the “operators”, in fact they are acting as if it was normal, it was nothing. In this extract he is outside looking at the McClellan's house, wishing they would let him enter. He is standing, outside, immobile. And he starts to think of what happened. Many devices are used in this short passage, the most obvious is the punctuation. In fact, one can see that the sentences are short, deprived of any verbs at first. The rhythm of the passage shows that fist he is thinking slowly but then Bradbury is using comas, to imply the rapidity of thoughts. As Montag is realizing, he seems more and more breathless. By the end of the extract the sentences are longer and clearer. As if the rain had cooled the fire inside him. In fact, the word “fire” is repeated many times. In literature, fire has several meanings, it can be anger, destruction but also rebirth. Nature is also widely present in this passage. In fact, there is the lexical field of nature: “ rain”, “fire”, “storm”, “volcano” or “stream”. This lexical field is about nature but there are powerful events. They are as beautiful as destructive. As if everything that Montag knew was destructed. The extract finishes with “I don't know anything anymore” and shows the reader that it is a turning point in the book.
"'you're peculiar yourself, Mr Montag. Sometimes I even forget you're a fireman. Now, may I make you angry again?' 'Go ahead.' 'How did it start? How did you get into it? How did you pick your work and how did you happen to think to take the job you have? You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. the others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow.' He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other." (pág. 34)
Neste pequeno excerto, entende-se que Montag começa a questionar-se a ele próprio assim como os outros questionam as suas acções e personalidade. A sua conduta não se assemelha à conduta exigida aos bombeiros e quando questionado sobre a mesma sente-se zangado não só pela questão mas também por realizar que não é igual aos outros. "No one has time to anyone else", apenas o facto de Montag se destacar ao não seguir a corrente quotidiana frenética, em que ninguém tem tempo para ninguém ou para si mesmo, mostra a sua natureza, a preocupação pelo saber, o que o torna mais uma vez único na profissão que segue, visto não ter uma atitude ameaçadora para com os que o rodeiam.
"Colored people don't like 'Little Black Sambo.' Burn it. White people don't feel good about 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Burn it." p.59
These are allusions to two famous books. Uncle Tom's Cabin is an antislavery book written by Harriet Beecher (1852), in which she severely criticized slavery and which has become known in many occidental countries. Little Black Sambo, published in 1898 by Hellen Bannerman was criticized for racism toward black children. Sambo is a character in Uncle Tom's Cabin; by extension this has become a pejorative term which implies discrimination of the Blacks. Uncle Tom has become the stereotpye of the black slave.
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an important African American site, in honor of Josiah Henson due to his work with the abolition movement and the Underground railroad. Beatty is saying that the racial effects make the other race of people feel uncomfortable, but no matter race the book is about, they burn it any way. The way the government feel about books, does not affect whether or not the story is black or white. – Rahim Juma
"No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid to forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say [...]" foi o excerto que escolhi analisar porque foi um momento que me surpreendeu na obra, dado que até então só personagens fúteis (Mildred e amigas) ou o capitão Beatty é que fazem uma apologia à imagem e à queima dos livros. Neste momento, Faber, um intelectual e defensor dos livros, diminui a forma física dos livros. Inicialmente, isto é um choque para os leitores, mas toma um rumo mais importante quando Faber diz que o essencial é a mensagem dos livros e não o recipiente onde esta vem. Isto mostra, numa altura em que a televisão estava a emergir, que o autor não está contra a tecnologia ou a substituição dos livros pela imagem (como sugerido no diálogo entre Beatty e Montag sobre a profissão de bombeiro), mas sim contra a cultura de massas e a nulidade de informação que a imagem fez emergir. O texto torna-se então mais importante na atualidade, pelo que esta distopia poderá estar prestes a chegar. Neste excerto, Ray Bradbury recorre ao diálogo entre Faber e Montag para explicar a importância da qualidade da mensagem e para justificar a queima dos livros pelos grupos de intelectuais que Montag encontrará mais tarde. Usando repetições ("old phonograph records, old motion pictures and in old friends"; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself"), Faber reforça a ideia de que o essencial dos livros, a mensagem, não está dependente do receptáculo e que a tecnologia não é necessariamente má, Outro recurso usado neste discurso é o uso do adjetivo ("There is nothing magical") na frase anterior ao uso do nome ("The magic"), tornando a leitura mais interessante e reforçando o significado das palavras no contexto. Creio que este texto está muito ligado à evolução tecnológica dos séculos XX e XXI, sobretudo ao medo da imagem se tornar mais importante que o texto e é com isso que a obra, e este excerto em particular, faz intertextualidade. Bradbury surpreende o leitor mostrando uma distopia governada pela imagem e depois diz que a culpa está em quem não a soube usar, em quem não soube criar "poros".
Do you know, I had a dream an hour ago. I lay down for a catnap and in this dream you and I, Montag, got into a furious debate on books. You towered with rage, yelled quotes at me. I calmly parried every thrust. ‘Power,’ I said. And you, quoting Dr. Johnson, said ‘Knowledge is more than equivalent to force!’ And I said, ‘Well, Dr. Johnson also said, dear boy, that “He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.’ ” Stick with the firemen, Montag. All else is dreary chaos!”
Should there an argument be put forward regarding a section from the book which was willingly left out of the cinematographic adaptation, it should without a shadow of a doubt focus itself on this very part. When Beatty approached Montag to tell him about his dream, the first realization that should come to the reader pertains to how educated and well-read Beatty comes across, especially for someone who supposedly despises literature. During the process in which Beatty is recounting is dream to Montag, he himself fires a flurry of literary quotes towards, the very first one being “Knowledge is more than equivalent to force” from Dr. Samuel Johnson’s “The Prince of Abissinia: A tale”, a book commonly described as an “apologue or moral fable on happiness”, one of the key themes of the story. Despite the intertextuality being one of the most prominent elements in this part of the text (the quotes ranging from William Shakespeare to Benjamin Jonson) the reason I find this excerpt so relevant in the context of the book and, in turn, this initial quote in the context of the excerpt is mainly due to the link this story subtly (not so much in the case of the film) establishes between its fictional oppressive regime and another quite real oppressive regime which ruled over Germany when Ray Bradbury was in his twenties. The irony of Captain Beatty, a leading figure of both the Firemen as well as the system of rule it represented acquiring a feeling of what Nietzsche would most likely describe as “Rausch” by narrating his dream and using it as platform to engage in navel-gazing literary discussions between “himself and Montag” can serve as criticism for any form of artistic and intellectual smothering, be it a law, organization, state government or even something as trivial as a personal opinion. However, if the book is actually right in its final thought, then somewhere along the line we will forget how absolutism is flawed by nature and will make the same mistakes all over again.
“No, not water; fire. You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days. Well, this fire’ll last me the rest of my life.”
Na primeira parte do livro Fahrenheit 451, Montag e os outros “bombeiros” pegam fogo a uma casa onde uma mulher escondia livros. Tendo escolhido permanecer na sua casa, junto dos seus livros, a mulher morre entre as chamas. Mais tarde, Montag fala com Mildred, expondo os seus sentimentos de culpa em relação à morte da mulher – “She was as rational as you and I, more so perhaps, and we burned her” –, e Mildred, apaticamente, diz-lhe “That’s water under the bridge” (expressão coloquial que significa que algo faz parte do passado e, como tal, deve ser esquecido). Em resposta, Montag diz estas palavras.
Na primeira frase (“No, not water; fire”), Montag contrapõe o elemento natural presente na expressão utilizada por Mildred – a água – com o elemento fundamental a toda a história do livro, o fogo. Porém, o contraste entre estes dois elementos não é apenas de natureza física, mas também semântica: enquanto na expressão “water under the bridge”, a água era referida de maneira metafórica, aqui é contraposta com o fogo, que está a ser considerado de maneira literal (sendo aquilo que matou a mulher que escondia livros).
Depois disto, o contraste semântico continua, agora entre os dois possíveis sentidos do “fogo”: o fogo real, concreto, que queima casas e mata pessoas (“You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days.”), e o fogo metafórico, o fogo da culpa que arde na mente de Montag, sendo capaz de durar anos (“Well, this fire’ll last me the rest of my life.”).
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ReplyDelete"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind." (pag 58 ou 62, não tenho o livro na minha presença).
ReplyDeleteO Capitão Beatty diz estas linhas no final do capítulo “The Hearth and the Salamander”, enquanto conta a história dos bombeiros a Montag. É importante notar que todo o discurso de Beatty possui um tom Irónico. Ele defende a destruição de autenticidade num discurso apaixonado, num tom cheio de remorsos. Ele está disposto a defender a homogeneizar da sociedade enquanto se mantém a ele próprio educado, denunciando o uso de livros como armas mas usando os livremente para ganho próprio. Beatty é das personagens mais complexas no livro, ele usa a sua mente educada por livros (a sua arma predileta), para manipular impiedosamente Montag. Pode-se também argumentar, se terá Beatty escolhido o seu trabalho após ter perdido a fé nos livros ou, para ter acesso legal aos livros perante a sua posição enquanto agente de autoridade (Chefe dos Bombeiros).
"One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire, One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. (...)"
ReplyDeleteNeste excerto de texto, Montag acabou de por a sua mulher na cama, que momentos antes estava a ter uma lavagem estomacal. Enquanto ela está a dormir com sossego, Montag fica na cama a ouvir a chuva antes de adormecer. Com a enumeração dos pingos de chuva, cada uma representa uma pessoa ou um evento à Montag. À medida que se avança no parágrafo, há a alusão que a velocidade dos pingos aumenta. Começa com as frases curtas que depois juntam-se a pouco a pouco com a repetição da contagem dos números e dos elementos que lhes correspondem.
Naquele momento, a chuva podia representar o estado caótico da mente de Montag. Em pouco tempo, acabou de conhecer uma pessoa nova que radicalizou a maneira como ele pensava e também passou por um evento traumático. Ele tem dificuldade de processar tudo que se está passar à sua volta. Mais tarde no texto, a chuva terá um significado mais positiva quando se encontra com a Clarisse outra vez, que está a caminhar e a beber a chuva.
-Matilde Gouveia, n.º 52418
Page 16
ReplyDeleteWhen Montag met Clarisse for the first time and they are somewhere in the second half of their conversation.
"You think too many things," said Montag, uneasily.
"I rarely watch the 'parlour walls' or go to races or Fun Parks. So I've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last."
"I didn't know that!" Montag laughed abruptly.
"Bet I know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning."
He suddenly couldn't remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable.
I like this passage and how it talks about how we don’t think anymore, because we watch TV and go to amusement parks instead and we don’t even notice the nature, because advertisements occupy more space and they are more eye catching.
(In my reading, this situation is not a distant future, it is happening now. We are alienating the nature and ourselves only to spend our lives by living in an illusion, by choosing to look only at the altered, photo shopped and scripted version of reality.)
Clarisse somehow escapes this frame of existence. She does not accept to simply passively watch what is being fed to her, she prefers to spend time by developing her "crazy thoughts.“ She also dares to physically escape the town to explore what is beyond it. And she is fascinated by the changing format of advertising, which is summed up so nicely – our lives are getting so much faster and consequently the ads need to be longer. I think that what is so lovable about Clarisse is most of all her curiosity. How she does not readily accept things for a fact, but she likes to learn about the history and why things are no longer the same they used to be.
I also like the way Montag’s reactions are succinctly described. From the few words – uneasily, laughed abruptly, quite irritable – you can perfectly feel how his attitude is changing.
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ReplyDelete«Her tongue was moving in her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be trying to remembre something, and then they remembered na her tongue moved again: “Play the man, Mas ter Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!”»
ReplyDeleteThis is a historical allusion. On October 16, 1555 a man named Latimer said the same sentence to Nicholas Ridley, as they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy. Both of them were Protestants who wanted to deepen the protestant religion in England, even though it was against the will of Queen Mary.
This historical allusion used by Bradbury has the purpose of showing how prompt the lady was to die, and concequently burn for her books. Her predisposition for defending what she believed in, makes evident the aversion of what the firemen were doing by destroying her home and books. This action enhanced the already baffled Montag into an even more perturbed state.
This also showed Beatty’s former interest and knowledge in books when he explained the statement she said to the fireman.
Page 47
ReplyDelete"He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying 'Didn't firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?'"
Before this quotation, Montag was a man of duty. He wouldn't question or wonder until He met Clarisse who a is curious girl about anything. Montag was listening her questions one of them is about firemen's job before fire-proofed houses.Montag have an interested in the girl's different point of view.The girl's questions and comments effected him; That's why, After he glanced a line of book because of curiousity,he started to think about his job's aim. This thought leads him to take a book instead of burning it.
I think first part of the book is about questioning, He meets a different little girl, He realizes that he hasn't got a marriage based on life, He witnesses a woman willing to die with her books and these actions leads him to question. Therefore, I think this quotation is important for part one.
Dilayhan Ayta
Pág. 75: ‘More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don’t have to think, eh? Organize and organize and super-organize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns run into motels, people in nomadic surges from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this noon and I the night before.’
ReplyDeleteNo parágrafo apresentado, Beatty começa por descrever a condição de várias personagens de Fahrenheit 451, que vivem dominadas pela abundância de estímulos sensoriais, de informação e de entretenimento, característicos do pós-modernismo, que dispersam a atenção, ao mesmo tempo que impedem cada indivíduo de experienciar momentos de profunda concentração e contemplação (“you don’t have to think, eh?”). Este excesso é tornado explícito através da repetição das palavras “more”, “sports”, “organize” e do prefixo “super-”, ao mesmo tempo que o ritmo acelerado da intervenção de Beatty, devido à quantidade de informação que é dardejada, às ditas repetições e à utilização de estruturas paralelas, acaba também por saturar a mente do próprio leitor com estímulos excessivos. Após a sua descrição alucinante, Beatty torna claros os efeitos dessa desatenção ao afirmar “The mind drinks less and less. Impatience.”. Este ponto de viragem no tom do discurso torna-se claro através do contraste da repetição da palavra “less” com as anteriores frases iniciadas pela palavra “more”.
A opressão do espírito inquisitivo do Homem levou à destruição da sua individualidade e à criação de multidões (“everyone”, “group spirit”, “crowds” e “Towns”) profundamente insatisfeitas, que, de forma impaciente, procuram esquecer o seu descontentamento. Ao manterem-se num estado de perpétuo movimento (“people in nomadic surges”), estas multidões são associadas à noção da estrada (“Highways”, “gasoline refugee” e “motels”), espaço intimamente ligado ao conceito da mobilidade, oferecendo, assim, uma oportunidade de evasão. Contudo, esta é frustrada, tornando a condição do “refugiado” ainda mais infeliz, este viaja sem um verdadeiro destino (“following the moon tides”) na esperança de escapar à sua própria infelicidade. A manifesta ansiedade (“run into”) e natureza interminável desta fuga sem rumo torna-se clara através da repetição da palavra “somewhere” seguida da palavra “nowhere”, que, por sua vez, subverte as espectativas do leitor e fá-lo experienciar a frustração destas multidões.
A frase final apresenta diversas assonâncias (“moon”, “room”, “noon” e “tides”, “tonight”, “I”, “night”) assim como aliterações (“tides”, “tonight”, “slept”, “night”) que expressam o movimento contínuo destas pessoas que se substituem umas às outras nos motéis sem a criação de quais quer laços ou vínculos entre si, demonstrando o quão mecanizado e fragmentado o Homem se tornou.
"You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn."
ReplyDeleteThis short excerpt demonstrates a clear contrast between Faber and the rest of the characters in the novel. In a society where difference is regarded as something dangerous, Faber was able to survive. He calls it cowardice and yet he does act courageous, at times. In this case Faber is trying to get through to Montag, to calm him and reassure him that what he did before and what he might do in the future won't be perfect and that he would welcome his mistakes, for they are good teachers. He then gives his own example. His use of the word "Man" is to show Montag and the reader that in the short time they spent together a bond was formed and they are now friends and partners in the crime of loving books. Faber also likes using metaphors to explain how his knowledge, or lack thereof got him into trouble "They beat me with sticks". His ignorance, once a blunt instrument, gave way to knowledge, his now sharpened blade. Faber concludes his reasoning stating that one cannot hide his ignorance, doing so will prevent one from learning. Unlike everyone else in this dystopian society, Montag needed to take chances and make mistakes so that he could learn.
Gonçalo Castro
"It was not burning; it was warming!
ReplyDeleteHe saw many hands held to its warmth, hands without arms, hidden in darkness. Above the hands, motionless faces that were only moved and tossed and flickered with firelight. He hadn't known fire could look this way. He had never thought in his life that it could give life as well as take. Even its smell was different.
How long he stood he did not know, but there was a foolish and yet delicious sense of knowing himself as an animal come from the forest, drawn by the fire. He was a thing of brush and liquid eye, of fur and muzzle and hoof, he was a thing of horn and blood that would smell like autumn if you bled it out on the ground. He stood a long long time, listening to the warm crackle of the flames.
There was a silence gathered all about that fire and the silence was in the men's faces, and time was there, time enough to sit by this rustling track under the trees, and look at the world and turn it over with the eyes, as if it were held to the centre of the bonfire, a piece of steel these men were all shaping. It was not only the fire that was different. It was the silence. Montag moved toward this special silence that was concerned with all of the world." (pg 187, Harper Collins ed)
As a reader, getting to know Montag’s story of his quest for freedom, was constantly an unnerving experience, there was always this feeling of anxiety, because there was the permanent fear of things not going as planned, the risk of getting caught, the constant disappointment in human relations, whether it was an indifferent wife, losing a dear friend or hating a foe. However, in this passage of the book, Montag experiences a new side to two elements present in his life before, in a completely different way. The fire, which he and his colleagues used to suppress knowledge, to intimidate curiosity and to take life from those who sought to break free, now did exactly the opposite, it provided those people with the warmth they needed to carry on fighting, to help them learn and ask questions.
The silence, that before meant the presence of his apathetic wife, or his reaction to Captain Beatty’s provocations, now was peaceful and helped everything seem more alive. In this excerpt, Montag truly experiences nature, just like Clarisse did, in an innocent and primal way, with all the weight lifted off of his shoulders, ready for a new beginning.
« One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, the uncle. Four, fire,One Mildred, two Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping-tablets, men, disposable tissue, coattails, blow, wad, flush, Clarisse, Mildred, Uncle, fire, tablets , tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, three, One, two, three ! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano. All rushing on down around in a spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning.
ReplyDelete'I don't know anything anymore' »
This is an extract taken from the first part of Farenheit 451 page 27. This passage is a turning point in Montag's life. He is lost, and he starts asking questions about burning books and the society. It is happening just after he realized that Mildred had taken too much pills. He is shocked by the “operators”, in fact they are acting as if it was normal, it was nothing. In this extract he is outside looking at the McClellan's house, wishing they would let him enter.
He is standing, outside, immobile. And he starts to think of what happened. Many devices are used in this short passage, the most obvious is the punctuation. In fact, one can see that the sentences are short, deprived of any verbs at first. The rhythm of the passage shows that fist he is thinking slowly but then Bradbury is using comas, to imply the rapidity of thoughts. As Montag is realizing, he seems more and more breathless. By the end of the extract the sentences are longer and clearer. As if the rain had cooled the fire inside him. In fact, the word “fire” is repeated many times. In literature, fire has several meanings, it can be anger, destruction but also rebirth. Nature is also widely present in this passage. In fact, there is the lexical field of nature: “ rain”, “fire”, “storm”, “volcano” or “stream”. This lexical field is about nature but there are powerful events. They are as beautiful as destructive. As if everything that Montag knew was destructed.
The extract finishes with “I don't know anything anymore” and shows the reader that it is a turning point in the book.
"'you're peculiar yourself, Mr Montag. Sometimes I even forget you're a fireman. Now, may I make you angry again?'
ReplyDelete'Go ahead.'
'How did it start? How did you get into it? How did you pick your work and how did you happen to think to take the job you have? You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. the others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You're one of the few who put up with me. That's why I think it's so strange you're a fireman, it just doesn't seem right for you, somehow.'
He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other." (pág. 34)
Neste pequeno excerto, entende-se que Montag começa a questionar-se a ele próprio assim como os outros questionam as suas acções e personalidade. A sua conduta não se assemelha à conduta exigida aos bombeiros e quando questionado sobre a mesma sente-se zangado não só pela questão mas também por realizar que não é igual aos outros.
"No one has time to anyone else", apenas o facto de Montag se destacar ao não seguir a corrente quotidiana frenética, em que ninguém tem tempo para ninguém ou para si mesmo, mostra a sua natureza, a preocupação pelo saber, o que o torna mais uma vez único na profissão que segue, visto não ter uma atitude ameaçadora para com os que o rodeiam.
"Colored people don't like 'Little Black Sambo.' Burn it. White people don't feel good about 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Burn it." p.59
ReplyDeleteThese are allusions to two famous books. Uncle Tom's Cabin is an antislavery book written by Harriet Beecher (1852), in which she severely criticized slavery and which has become known in many occidental countries. Little Black Sambo, published in 1898 by Hellen Bannerman was criticized for racism toward black children. Sambo is a character in Uncle Tom's Cabin; by extension this has become a pejorative term which implies discrimination of the Blacks. Uncle Tom has become the stereotpye of the black slave.
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an important African American site, in honor of Josiah Henson due to his work with the abolition movement and the Underground railroad. Beatty is saying that the racial effects make the other race of people feel uncomfortable, but no matter race the book is about, they burn it any way. The way the government feel about books, does not affect whether or not the story is black or white. – Rahim Juma
"No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid to forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say [...]" foi o excerto que escolhi analisar porque foi um momento que me surpreendeu na obra, dado que até então só personagens fúteis (Mildred e amigas) ou o capitão Beatty é que fazem uma apologia à imagem e à queima dos livros. Neste momento, Faber, um intelectual e defensor dos livros, diminui a forma física dos livros.
ReplyDeleteInicialmente, isto é um choque para os leitores, mas toma um rumo mais importante quando Faber diz que o essencial é a mensagem dos livros e não o recipiente onde esta vem. Isto mostra, numa altura em que a televisão estava a emergir, que o autor não está contra a tecnologia ou a substituição dos livros pela imagem (como sugerido no diálogo entre Beatty e Montag sobre a profissão de bombeiro), mas sim contra a cultura de massas e a nulidade de informação que a imagem fez emergir. O texto torna-se então mais importante na atualidade, pelo que esta distopia poderá estar prestes a chegar.
Neste excerto, Ray Bradbury recorre ao diálogo entre Faber e Montag para explicar a importância da qualidade da mensagem e para justificar a queima dos livros pelos grupos de intelectuais que Montag encontrará mais tarde. Usando repetições ("old phonograph records, old motion pictures and in old friends"; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself"), Faber reforça a ideia de que o essencial dos livros, a mensagem, não está dependente do receptáculo e que a tecnologia não é necessariamente má,
Outro recurso usado neste discurso é o uso do adjetivo ("There is nothing magical") na frase anterior ao uso do nome ("The magic"), tornando a leitura mais interessante e reforçando o significado das palavras no contexto.
Creio que este texto está muito ligado à evolução tecnológica dos séculos XX e XXI, sobretudo ao medo da imagem se tornar mais importante que o texto e é com isso que a obra, e este excerto em particular, faz intertextualidade.
Bradbury surpreende o leitor mostrando uma distopia governada pela imagem e depois diz que a culpa está em quem não a soube usar, em quem não soube criar "poros".
Henrique Albuquerque
51868
Do you know, I had a dream an hour ago. I lay
ReplyDeletedown for a catnap and in this dream you and I, Montag, got into a furious debate on books. You
towered with rage, yelled quotes at me. I calmly parried every thrust. ‘Power,’ I said. And you, quoting
Dr. Johnson, said ‘Knowledge is more than equivalent to force!’ And I said, ‘Well, Dr. Johnson also
said, dear boy, that “He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.’ ” Stick with the
firemen, Montag. All else is dreary chaos!”
Should there an argument be put forward regarding a section from the book which was willingly left out of the cinematographic adaptation, it should without a shadow of a doubt focus itself on this very part.
When Beatty approached Montag to tell him about his dream, the first realization that should come to the reader pertains to how educated and well-read Beatty comes across, especially for someone who supposedly despises literature.
During the process in which Beatty is recounting is dream to Montag, he himself fires a flurry of literary quotes towards, the very first one being “Knowledge is more than equivalent to force” from Dr. Samuel Johnson’s “The Prince of Abissinia: A tale”, a book commonly described as an “apologue or moral fable on happiness”, one of the key themes of the story.
Despite the intertextuality being one of the most prominent elements in this part of the text (the quotes ranging from William Shakespeare to Benjamin Jonson) the reason I find this excerpt so relevant in the context of the book and, in turn, this initial quote in the context of the excerpt is mainly due to the link this story subtly (not so much in the case of the film) establishes between its fictional oppressive regime and another quite real oppressive regime which ruled over Germany when Ray Bradbury was in his twenties.
The irony of Captain Beatty, a leading figure of both the Firemen as well as the system of rule it represented acquiring a feeling of what Nietzsche would most likely describe as “Rausch” by narrating his dream and using it as platform to engage in navel-gazing literary discussions between “himself and Montag” can serve as criticism for any form of artistic and intellectual smothering, be it a law, organization, state government or even something as trivial as a personal opinion. However, if the book is actually right in its final thought, then somewhere along the line we will forget how absolutism is flawed by nature and will make the same mistakes all over again.
Ricardo Rodrigues; 44942
“No, not water; fire. You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days. Well, this fire’ll last me the rest of my life.”
ReplyDeleteNa primeira parte do livro Fahrenheit 451, Montag e os outros “bombeiros” pegam fogo a uma casa onde uma mulher escondia livros. Tendo escolhido permanecer na sua casa, junto dos seus livros, a mulher morre entre as chamas. Mais tarde, Montag fala com Mildred, expondo os seus sentimentos de culpa em relação à morte da mulher – “She was as rational as you and I, more so perhaps, and we burned her” –, e Mildred, apaticamente, diz-lhe “That’s water under the bridge” (expressão coloquial que significa que algo faz parte do passado e, como tal, deve ser esquecido). Em resposta, Montag diz estas palavras.
Na primeira frase (“No, not water; fire”), Montag contrapõe o elemento natural presente na expressão utilizada por Mildred – a água – com o elemento fundamental a toda a história do livro, o fogo. Porém, o contraste entre estes dois elementos não é apenas de natureza física, mas também semântica: enquanto na expressão “water under the bridge”, a água era referida de maneira metafórica, aqui é contraposta com o fogo, que está a ser considerado de maneira literal (sendo aquilo que matou a mulher que escondia livros).
Depois disto, o contraste semântico continua, agora entre os dois possíveis sentidos do “fogo”: o fogo real, concreto, que queima casas e mata pessoas (“You ever seen a burned house? It smoulders for days.”), e o fogo metafórico, o fogo da culpa que arde na mente de Montag, sendo capaz de durar anos (“Well, this fire’ll last me the rest of my life.”).