Age Of Conformity Analysis

The Age of Conformity

1950’s America was a time where medicine, technology and music were becoming more and more advanced. From the manufacturing of cars, to the birth of corny sitcoms, America was very quickly becoming more futuristic. Looking back at the 1950s, it is easy to look over the years and notice the positive aspects of the developing decade, but if one takes a closer look, it wasn’t as perfect as it seemed. Teenage gangs were at an all time high as the new sounds of rock and roll encouraged violence, a war between Russia and the US was brewing and media influence was encouraging conformity rather than individualism. Through the use of speculative narratives and themes of dystopia, some socialists and authors of the time tried to

Guy Montag is described as a fireman who loves to burn- which is perfectly normal for a fireman in his society. The first time Guy is introduced, he is in the process of burning an unrevealed item and the author gives the reader an insight to how Guy thinks “...spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head…” (Bradbury, 1) This quote reveals to the author how blinded Guy was by his actions. As ‘blood was pounded in his head’, Guy wasn’t thinking about his actions and couldn’t have realised how ‘venomous’ burning was. To the reader, as we are aware of the issues in Guy’s society, we see the negative side to kerosene and burning as well as the censorship it imposes. The word ‘venomous’ powerfully describes how toxic and consuming our own blindness can be. Being uninformed about society leads to vulnerability and, as venom does, it kills-- not in the way of actually dying, but in the sense of being mindless-- and one can find themselves unable to construct their own thoughts and feeding off of others’ to form ideas, like the people in Fahrenheit 451’s society. “While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning” (Bradbury, 2) The author describes the

In the words of Neil Gaiman, the book is “a love letter” addressed to people to put focus on how the world-- no matter at which state it is in at that moment-- always has room for growth and this growth can only come from within us. Now more than ever, we need to be aware of the importance of coming together as humankind and working together for the better of the world. We are all so indulged in social media and looking, acting, or speaking in a way because it is what is considered as the norm. We’re all so eager to keep up with these trends that we become lost in what is usual instead of trying to find our own special qualities as individuals. We are always talking about how society doesn’t allow different and peculiar, but we constantly abandon the bigger picture: We are society. We are the problem. We can always start