Unity of Opposites by Caleb

Unity of Opposites by Caleb - October 2020 Scholarship Essay

In world of opposites, Fahrenheit 451 strives to present a perspective of one character not willing to blindly follow society, but rather be independent, and willing to teach others about the power of certain truth and knowledge. This book, by far, was the best book to read during 2020 for its classic, cautionary tale of a close-minded society and the possible dangers it may impose on individuals who were willing to take the risk to have both a balanced, and open-minded view on everything. The book warns the reader that without a balanced society, a society can be destroyed faster than it was built. The reader is given the impression that Montag views the society as ignorant and government makes society ignorant. For the author, Ray Bradbury, this makes sense that he would make this the status quo for his book. During the time he wrote. this book, America had an extreme negative view of the society of its enemies. America’s enemies had a completely different approach to politics and culture compared to the Americans. The Americans saw the enemy in a perspective that they were extreme in government that had no free will whatsoever. This propaganda created an exaggerated view in which Ray Bradbury uses. The society Ray Bradbury builds is not realistic because even through a society can progress to an extreme, it will never reach an extreme form of government. Society can never be dangerously extreme because there will always be an opposition between groups of people in a society.

Society must need its balance: a certain good to a certain evil, a yin for a yang, and for
every society with certain views present in this world, there will be an society, with views opposite to that of the other society, ready to fire when the perfect imbalance of society comes. Guy Montag’s society is in a changing state. It may not seem that the form of government in his society was publicly changing, but because the government was at an extreme, society needed to embrace the people declaring an opposite change. In the book, Montag states, “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” (Bradbury 2018, 49). With a society with an extreme perspective, there will always be people who will question the status quo.

People are different, and it can be clearly seen between Guy and Mildred. Mildred
represented the part of society dependent on the safe comforts of a controlling government. An
example of this characteristic was when she reported the books in order to save her and Guy’s life . Guy represented the part of society independent from any authority and was capable of
obtaining any type of information with the discipline of digression. These two, however, do not
represent all of society. Citizens can represent characters such as Faber (a silent independent
individual), Captain Beatty (an open minded individual), and even the old woman (an individual
who wanted change); with all these diverse characters, a society will always balance itself.

At the end of the book, Montag has a call to action. This call to action is to rebuild a
society in which the reader knows that it will most likely be a setting opposite in the beginning of
the book. Although this may seem like a resolved ending, he must next face the next problem:
balance. It is hard to balance the structure in a society that previously from an extreme that the
protagonist disagreed strongly, but if Montag decides to progress of sharing the knowledge of
books and a return of nature, it only takes one to change an extreme form of government that
could establish a copy of the society that Montag possibly swore not to go back. “Remember, the
firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.” (Bradbury
2018, 83). If a society is filled with selfish independent individuals that only wants to create
groups comfortable for the fittest, a person with knowledge from the books would most likely
want certain individuals to be ignorant, causing a society like Montag’s old status quo, and
cause the rebirth of book burning. In the most extreme, the strongest are the only ones who can
keep ignorance, and sooner a later, another ignorant citizen from the “renewed” society will start
saying, “it was a pleasure to burn” (Bradbury 2018, 1). From the book, it is important that a
society keeps different opinions actively against each other and understand that there is certain
time to do a certain task. “To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time
to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. Yes, all that.” (Bradbury 2018, 158). Life is like a roller coaster; there are ups and downs, but all the extreme turns are important. To have the opposites in life be unified will make the ride of life interesting, challenging, and exciting.

Bibliography
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2018.