People can rely on literacy and social awareness to help them be better aware and more thoughtful. But when people have neither of these skills it can harm the view they have of their surroundings. Fahrenheit 451 is an example of what would happen if social awareness and literacy were looked down on. Over time in the society where everything takes place in, not many are socially aware or can read, resulting to people going to great lengths for their beliefs and wants that they don 't really think through. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows that literacy and social awareness are important for society through the use of characterization and symbolism in the story. Characters in the story who were more literate and communicated more were more socially aware and knew more about their surroundings. Montag started in the story by living his life like everyone else until he met Clarisse. Clarisse starts to poke at Montag with questions which eventually got him thinking, one …show more content…
He proves this when he says “There you have it, Montag. It didn 't come from the government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank god,” (pg 54-55). Beatty must have been aware to know this, maybe he pieced the information together himself or he could have had a conversation with someone to find out. Now Montag, by pursuing literacy and communicating with someone who knew more than him, knows the truth. Another thing that is now known is that everyone in the society is isolated because they don 't talk, learn and much less see or want to face the reality of things. It can be seen how this society doesn 't have much to it, or have any new things coming out of it because no one is contributing in a helpful