Fahrenheit 451 pp. 69-80

1. Write a question about the reading. What are you confused about? If you don't get an answer on your blog, be sure to raise the question in class. Even if you do get an answer, and you think it's a good question with a good answer, bring it up in discussion.

I was wondering... The book makes it sound like he only recently obtained a conscience about books, and yet it also makes it sound as if he's been collecting them for years. Isn't that a bit contradictory?

B. How will books get us out of "the cave?" What is the cave and how will books get us out of it?

Before we start, allow me to briefly explain the Allegory of the Cave, (or Plato's Cave, as some know it as), for I shall be making quite a few references to it. (The following is paraphrased from Wikipedia. I love the Allegory of the Cave, but not to the point where I have the entire thing memorized. Yet.)

Imagine that there are several prisoners who have been chained to a chair within a deep cave since childhood. They cannot move, and their heads are chained in such a way that they must continually stare at the wall of the cave.

Now, picture, if you will, that there is a large fire behind the prisoners, and between the flames and the prisoners is a raised walkway. Along this walkway, the shapes of various animals, plants, and other objects are carried. These objects cast a shadow upon the only wall the prisoners can see, much in the same manner as a puppet show. The cave is also acoustically designed in such a way that, when one of the shape carriers speak, the sound echoes in a manner that would make it appear that it is the shadow who is speaking, and not the shadow maker.

The prisoners begin to engage in a game where they see who can name the shapes the fastest. This, being the only reality they know, is how they judge the quality of one another. Those who can name shapes the fastest are praised, and those who do poorly are shunned.

Now, suppose one, just one prisoner is freed from his chains. He, of course, will want to stand up and turn around, and see the world that he has never gotten the chance to see before.

The light of the fire will blind his eyes, and the objects passing before the shadows will seem less than real to him.

Now, assume that he wanders out of the cave. At first, the sun shall completely blind him. As his eyes adjust, he begins to see brighter and brighter things, starting with the shadows he is accustomed to, then eventually climbing all the way to the sun.

The sun, he'll realize, is the object that causes the seasons of the year, presides over all things in the visual reason, and is, in some ways, the cause of everything he sees.

Once "enlightened," the freed man would want to return to the prisoners in order to tell them all he has seen, and possibly even free them so they may see for themselves. However, the prisoners do not wish to be freed. They have spent their entire life in front of these shadows and have adopted it as their own reality. Now, for a time, this freed man would be one of the ones identifying shapes upon the wall. Having been out in the light for a long time, his eyes would once again have to adjust, this time to the darkness. Hence, he will not be able to recognize the shapes as well, making it seem as if his trip to the surface ruined his eyesight.


Not as brief of an explanation as I would have liked, but I hope you got the point. But now, you may ask "Okay, that's some pretty trippy stuff you got there, but what does it have to do with Fahrenheit 451?"

My answer: Everything.

Now, let us assume something else, for a change. The year is sometime in the 1990s, in the strange, alternate world described in Fahrenheit 451. Technology may have advanced, but everything else remains the same. People have upgraded from cold, dim caves to the artificial warmth and false security of "The Parlor." Electricity has removed the need for flames and shadow puppets, instead substituting the 3 and/or 4 wall television. And, of course, the prisoners are no longer shackled to their chairs by steel and iron, but by their own will. No longer are the heads of the prisoners kept staring at the wall by chains, but by some crazy human emotion called "interest."

The game also remains in place, although the rules have changed. Instead of being an observer, merely naming the shapes as they pass by, now men and women have set scripts, and feign interaction with these shadows, these beings that do not truly exist. Those who's interaction seems the most real are praised, and those who question the system, those who say "Why, those are not but shadows upon the wall! They are not real people!" are shunned.

Now, what if someone gets a hold of a book, and reads about the Allegory of the Cave? What if he realizes "Dear lord, that sounds not unlike how the world is today! They feed us nothing but illusions, and expect us to be happy!" Then the book serves as the key to unshackle oneself, to release himself from the cave of circuits and false joy, and see the sun and the man in the moon.

Once "enlightened," the freed man would want to return to the prisoners in order to tell them all he has seen, and possibly even free them so they may see for themselves. However, the prisoners do not wish to be freed. They have spent their entire life in front of these shadows and have adopted it as their own reality. Now, the freed man will cry "But, there is a whole other world out there, one where we do not have to feign our happiness out of ignorance! Reject this reality, and substitute it with my own! Our own!"

The man is promptly branded as an anarchist, and burnt at the stake with all his precious books.