Midnight Dreams

English
December 10, 2008


An essay response to: Fahrenheit 451
by Dilpreet Randhawa


A poison, spreading throughout a body, slowly taking everything over completely. This body is not a human body, but a body of society, polluted by people who just sit around, letting life do its own things, leaving their lives to someone else. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury captures just how bad our country would be if we allowed a “higher power” to do all our work for us, instead of stepping up, taking control, and having things the way they should be.

In Fahrenheit 451, the main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman. A fireman’s job is to burn books that can cause an idea. In short, every single book. In this time, ideas are thought to be an abomination, and a new, revolutionary idea is not acceptable. Montag, and also everyone in this era, thinks their life is a perfectly normal one, with many things that were not normal. However, a girl named Clarisse comes by, and blew all of those fake things with her own ideas. When she did that, just by the way Montag was thinking afterwards just shows how restricted and unintelligent these people were. Because of the government making sure nobody can choose to revolt, to choose to change, the idea of having an idea, is utterly impossible.

At one point in Fahrenheit 451, a woman is caught with having books, and her house is to be burned down. The firemen ask her to leave the house, but she chooses to stay behind. Montag doesn’t realize why. This was the first time somebody didn’t save their life, instead staying behind with their books. This represents somebody choosing to stay with their ideas and beliefs, instead of letting somebody control their mind. This woman pushed him over the edge, and he finally let go of these distorted ideas. At this point, he thinks “What are we doing?”

At this point, Montag begins to realize how messed up his life actually is. This has quite a bit of purpose behind it. At the woman’s house, he caught a book, and instead of putting on the ground to be burned, he had it in his hands. “So this was the hand that started in all…His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms…His hands were ravenous.” By this time, he already had been influenced by Clarisse, and he unconsciously thought about opening the book, showing himself these new things and ideas. He was now completely stuck on this concept, unable to move away from this idea, pushed into him by Clarisse.

Now you may be asking, how is this a problem in our society? The answer is human nature, which is lying about things that are important, things that people can fear. Many people look at the wall blocking the truth, looking at what’s on it, and then taking it all for granted. But some people actually think, and sneak past the wall, and choose not to believe the lies. Back in Bradbury’s time, during the World Wars, the government hid the truths about what we actually did, and completely blew other things out of proportion. This made the society either love it, or hate it, instead of just looking at the truth. When someone spoke out, the idea was shot down almost right away, and that person was instantly disliked. Not until after the war did the people know the truth.

Sometimes, our life isn’t what we think, or want it to be. But when the truth is distorted, and even bended to hide the real truth, and it’s instead a fake, a large problem comes into this world, and it might not even be a real world again. This book truly shows what can and definitely will happen if we allow such a thing like this to happen, to let a higher power control us, and fill our heads with useless lies, instead of us choosing to know the reality, and controlling our own lives.

The bright sun shines on you, casting a short shadow behind you . That slight bounce in your step, indicating the great day you’re having. When you open the door, however, a dull and gray sight awaits you, somebody sitting on the couch, something definitely wrong. In Great Expectations, Pip’s expectations throughout his life for everything to go right, is wrong, and his arrogance only fuels it.

In Great Expectations, Pip’s so arrogant he never realizes its not all about him. Throughout this book he is always expecting things for him to be perfect, and even when it doesn’t happen, he continues. In Pip’s early life he never had anything bad happen to him to show him what the real world is like. He thought Ms. Havisham was a nice person, because after all, which lady with a grand house would not be a nice, generous person? However, she wasn’t, instead, an evil, dark, unlikable woman. She had trained Estella to do that which was done to her. When Pip is first introduced to Estella, he likes her only for her looks, and its clear it’ll never happen, but his ignorance of reality easily kills the thought and reality checks off. While now it doesn’t seem like a problem, it will evolve into one soon.

In Pip’s early teenage life, his expectations become great, but only by a small margin. He still visits Ms. Havisham, and still is stuck on Estella. He also treats Biddy like a fool. Although he never directly says it, he thinks that simply because he is a boy and she isn’t, he is more educated. But, she had more experience than him, and is definitely smarter than him. But Biddy still sticks with him, and continues to teach him. During this period of his life, he begins to think of how his life is to be, a perfect life. He is exposed to real life problems, but his supposed “perfect-ness” easily quells that idea. When he is approached by Jaggers to go to London, his life can actually happen the way he wants his life to be.

Once Pip reaches London, he expects the place to be nice. But, London isn’t the amazing, happy place Pip thought it would be. Instead, London is a gloomy place, and in Pip’s eyes, “blue and dank”. He soon meets Jagger’s co-worker, and once again, misjudges him. However, this is completely normal, and Wemmick even has rings, wedding rings, on his hands. That’s just harsh, and any normal person would instantly think Wemmick is a very cold man. As he slowly gets to know Wemmick, he is invited to Wemmick’s house for dinner. He thinks that Wemmick’s house will be just like his workplace, and when he gets there, Wemmick’s frown turns into a smile. Suddenly, Pip has this jovial, crazy, trigger-happy fellow. He was definitely not expecting that, and many other things soon follow.

Pip thought the fortune that allowed him to get to London was given by Ms. Havisham, because he still hasn’t realized how evil she is, and also because she is the only person Pip knows of who is capable of doing so. However, his benefactor was Magwitch, the criminal he met years before as a child. He knew Magwitch was definitely on his way either to freedom or to death. He hid Magwitch until the dawn of the day on which they were to escape to a boat out at sea. Pip actually thought that this would work, and he was right to do so. However, Pip nor any one who helped with the escape had any expertise in escaping, besides Magwitch. Magwitch alone hadn’t been enough, and he was caught and accused. Pip stood by Magwitch during his trial, but Pip was sure that Magwitch’s trial would be a smooth ride, and for Magwitch to come out okay. However, he was horribly wrong. Even though any friend should help another friend out in their time of need, but in this situation, there was no hope for poor Magwitch. Pip soon grew very, very sick, and even after all of this, his ignorance only grows.

When Pip recovers, thanks to Joe, he doesn’t even thank Joe properly, and Joe soon leaves. Pip realizes how badly his life is, and rushes home to marry Biddy and then settle down. He realizes just how great Biddy was, and finally, Estella loses control of his entire mind, and doesn’t desecrate it anymore. But, Pip was a fool to think that he could simply marry Biddy, and comes home to find Joe and Biddy married. The new ending just fuels his ignorance and gives Pip his happy ending with Estella, but in the original ending, he gets what he deserves, and finds Estella to be married to somebody else, and he knows they cannot be together. He goes about his life, with no family besides Joe’s, and a slow and steady job. He had a good life beforehand, but he ruined it by being so ignorant and dim-witted.

This whole book is made up of themes and sub-themes, but one stands out: Ignorance. This book shows that being an arrogant fool throughout life will get you nowhere, and ruin your life. Even though your life may be perfect now, thinking that everything will go perfectly, will only make life come back and bite you in the face.