Fahrenheit 451 Individuality

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 reveals the unsettling truth about individuality and the human behavior of wanting to be the same. The lack of uniqueness in the dystopian world leads the main character, Guy Montag, to question things around him. The strange societal values and the suppression of knowledge and literature rob him of his individuality. He is forced to reclaim it and discover how to live a unique life. Lack of individuality lessens our sense of self-worth, causing self-esteem to plummet and insecurities to soar. At the beginning of the novel, the main character, Guy Montag, is a man the same as anyone else. He conforms to society and believes everything he’s told without a moment of question. He avoids talking about the

He refuses to question the dystopian societal rules and values and does the same thing every day. As the story progresses, Montag meets Clarisse Mclelen, a young woman living across the street, and she influences Montag to fall into a spiral of doubt and questioning. She asks Montag if he’s happy, and without hesitation, he says yes. Entering his fireproof house, he thinks to himself, “Of course I'm happy. What does she think? I’m not?” (Bradbury 8). Now that Montag starts to doubt his happiness, he discovers himself and gains back the individuality that the world has stripped of him. Without the propaganda and conformity around him, he becomes a real person, not a clueless entity living the same life every day. He reveals more about his true self as the novel progresses. He reads the books he is paid to burn,

Media has put an idea into people's heads that they need to be just like everyone else. Children growing up with social media are taught that if they want to be famous and successful they need to be just like these figures that they look up to so much. This idea chips away at their identity and molds them into someone so far from themselves. If you take a moment to look at influencers and celebrities on any social media platform, patterns in the way they dress, talk, and present themselves, are seen throughout everyone. They are all the same people. Due to the fast pace of mass media, and how fast trends change, no one is given the chance to be themselves. People aren’t given a single moment to question if they are contributing anything meaningful to the world. Society is so caught up in being just like celebrities and influencers, that they completely lose themselves in it. This generation suffers from the want to be like everyone else, and we are left with nothing unique and nothing different. The change in fashion, music, and even language, leads to an even greater desire to be the same. Children in this generation are the future, and if we maintain the excessive need for similarity, we will fail as a society. The world we live in today is already struggling with its societal values, and without uniqueness, nothing will change. Without the person-to-person distinction, the world turns gray and