Thursday, July 21, 2011

Fahrenheit 451- Granger

I thought a few of the ideas in the book made no sense to me, and all of them came from Granger. When Montag is talking to Granger, Granger says Montag is not important, and that the books they were remembering would someday end war (Bradbury 163-164). I do not understand either idea, so I will either reason myself into some understanding of them or otherwise rant about how silly they are. Either way, it should be an interesting post.

I just do not like the idea of anyone telling anyone else that they are unimportant. A person who does not think they are important is rarely a very happy person, and most people are important, or at least should be to themselves. Furthermore, are not the people who remember books the most important people in that situation? If something happened to just one of them, imagine what would be lost. It could be some great work of philosophy that took a lifetime to think through, and that would have really helped a lot of people. I think those people who remember the books are especially important.

I really do not understand what Granger was talking about with books being the end of war in general. Plenty of books promote war, like The Prince, by Machiavelli. That one was specifically mentioned too (Bradbury 152). If any book is ill suited for ending war, it is that one. I suppose Granger believes that the collective thoughts in all of the books, if paid attention to, would reason people out of going to war. I really disagree with that because plenty of people pay attention to books today, and plenty of people take time to think about things, but war is still a fairly common occurrence when you think about it. So now I have come to the conclusion that both of Granger’s statements were wrong, at least in my opinion. That also puts me in the position to say I am not particularly fond of that character based on the ideas he talks about, so I will.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1996. Print.

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