As a society, we aren’t the best at listening attentively. We neglect people and aren’t very good at finding answers for ourselves. We copy other people’s work or procrastinate until the latest moment to compete something. It benefits our society to obtain knowledge, because it is beneficial for the growth of our society, and Montag’s. We see multiple instances where Montag struggles to comprehend knowledge, like when he compares reading to the sieve and the sand. Throughout the book, we see how gaining knowledge is important for the growth of society. In a society where we are constantly starring at a screen, have our airpods in, or sitting in our rooms, we are isolated from the real world. Fahrenheit 451 is a book following the life of Montag, …show more content…
In Montag’s society, this does not exist. People contain what the government allows them to, and everything else is a blur. So, Bradbury was trying to make the reader realize that containing knowledge is important for the growth of society. One of the characters that strongly develop this theme is Montag, in the way that he is determined to differ from the average person. On the subway, Montag reads for the first time in public, and he describes himself as feeling numb. “The numbness will go away, he thought. It’ll take time, but I’ll do it, for Faber will do it for me. Someone somewhere will give me back the old face and the old hands the way they were.” (Bradbury 74). Montag describing himself this way shows how reading has made him different from everyone else and how he is different from his normal self, the being that the government depicted as perfect. He doesn’t feel as confident, easy going, and worry free as he used to be, and it’s all because he is having trouble understanding what he is reading. In the background of the subway, an advertisement plays for “Denham’s Dentifrice” and it causes Montag to become frustrated with himself because he is focusing on the technological ad instead of the physical book in his hand. This developed the theme by showing how Montag couldn’t read past “consider the lilies of the field”, but he could compete focus and understand the background advertisement. This clearly shows technology having power over knowledge in this society. Montag feels as though he cannot fix the society if he can’t read, and it was very aggravating for him. An additional example is how Montag contained more knowledge than the government desired, so he was forced to burn his own house and lose his wife. He faced severe consequences for being more knowledgeable than others, and it helps develop a clear theme.