Fahrenheit 451 & The Giver — Brief excerpts from a talk given by Zulfiqar Awan
The themes we will cover:
• Fahrenheit 451
• Entertaining ourselves to death
• Great literature and the psyche
• The Giver
• Memory & narrative (societal)
• Memory & narrative (individual)
Fahrenheit 451
A dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury, first published in 1953. Often regarded as one of his best works, the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and “firemen” burn any that are found. The book’s tagline explains the title: “Fahrenheit 451 — the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns…”, also known as Autoignition temperature. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.
Amusing ourselves to death
In Fahrenheit 451, the parlour walls are a form of entertainment that most people have inside their homes. Specifically, they are television screens which cover the surface of an entire wall.
In the introduction to his book, Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, rather than by Orwell’s work, where they were oppressed by state control.
Postman distinguishes the Orwellian vision of the future, in which totalitarian governments seize individual rights, from that offered by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, where people medicate themselves into bliss, thereby voluntarily sacrificing their rights. Drawing an analogy with the latter scenario, Postman sees television’s entertainment value as a present-day “soma”, the fictitious pleasure drug in Brave New World, by means of which the citizens’ rights are exchanged for consumers’ entertainment.
“Form excludes the content” as modernity has no intrinsic value.
Literature & the Psyche
Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Power of the Reader’s Mind over a Universe of Death — Harold Bloom
.. “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” (Bradbury)
“The great poems, plays, novels, stories teach us how to go on living. . . . Your own mistakes, accidents, failures at otherness beat you down. Rise up at dawn and read something that matters as soon as you can.” (Bloom)
“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering,” wrote C.S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain, “and you find that you have excluded life itself.” We have always suffered; we have always tried to cope. That urge to understand suffering is what’s behind one of humanity’s richest literary traditions — tragedy.
The Giver
The Giver is a story about a young boy called Jonas who lives in a society free of crime and sadness.
At the age of 12, children are assigned their jobs, which they will train for and do for the rest of their lives. Everything is chosen; from your parents to your partner. Jonas stands apart from the community when he is chosen to become the new “Memory Keeper”.
Society has been kept free of all the negative aspects of life because for as long as it has been formed, there has been someone who holds all the bad and good memories of the past within them. This is both bad and good for the inhabitants because, although they are protected from harm, they are also not exposed to the wonderful aspects of life.
Many themes in The Giver demonstrate Lowry’s concerns about society and humanity. For example, she concentrates on the tradeoffs involved when Jonas’ community chooses Sameness rather than valuing individual expression.
Memory and narrative (societal) — ‘Why history matters’ — Lynn Hunt
“Everywhere you turn, history is at issue. Politicians lie about historical facts, groups clash over the fate of historical monuments, officials closely monitor the content of history textbooks, and truth commissions proliferate across the globe. As the rapid growth in history museums shows, we live in a moment obsessed with history, but it is also a time of deep anxiety about
historical truth.”
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
Memory and narrative (Individual) — Freud and literature/talking cure.
Dr Freud is famed for developing psychoanalysis. This therapy involves treating mental disorders by delving into a person’s possible unconscious issues (e.g., repressed fears and conflicts) through techniques like dream interpretation and free association.
Freud tried the talking cure in his own private practice, but found patients would talk pretty freely to him without hypnosis, provided they were in a relaxed position — specifically, lying down on a couch — and if they were encouraged to say whatever came into their heads, a process known as free association. Once a patient talked at length, Freud could analyse what the person said to figure out what past traumas were likely causing the patient’s current distress.
Zulfiqar Awan
