Fahrenheit 451 and Harrison Bergeron,
a la Shmoop.
One of life's simple pleasures is to read
a book by a roaring fire. Afterward, you might
enjoy a nice mug of hot cocoa.
Chances are, you probably won't follow it
up by tossing your book into the fire.
Not unless you're a Nazi, a character in
Fahrenheit 451... or really unhappy with The Casual Vacancy.
Book burning was popular in real-life dystopias
like Nazi Germany, where they burned books
written by...well, anyone they disagreed with.
Which included... a lot of people.
It may have inspired Ray Bradbury to create
Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, a world where firemen
don't fight fires...
...they start them.
In Bradbury's vision of the future, all
books are banned, and whenever one is found
the firemen are sent in like pyromaniac-exterminators
to deal with the problem.
When one fireman named Guy Montag starts questioning whether it's really such a good idea to incinerate every book out there, he's
in for a world of trouble...
A world of trouble that includes vicious,
mechanical dogs.
Though many assume that Fahrenheit 451 is
about censorship...
There's actually some debate on the subject.
On one side is its author, Ray Bradbury, who
says the book is actually about the evils
of television sapping our attention spans.
On the other side is...just about everyone
else.
Um...what were we talking about again?
Oh, yeah...TV. And books. That's right.
Maybe Bradbury's right, and TV has corrupted
our attention span.
Another story about the dystopia that television
has wrought is Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron."
In case you didn't guess it from the title
of the story, the main character is named Harrison Bergeron.
... a kid who was born with the terrible curse
of being tall, athletic, and handsome.
In most places these traits would be awesome,
but in Harrison's world, being exceptional
is forbidden by law.
Everyone has to be equal, so anyone who is
smart, strong, attractive, or... in any way
awesome... is weighed down so that they become
as common as everyone else.
When Harrison tries to rebel and let his awesomeness
shine, he faces a fate worse than mechanical dogs.
What's a person to do when exceptional people
like Harrison aren't allowed to shine?
Sit around and watch TV, of course.
Unfortunately the TV is pretty boring, too.
The comedy isn't funny.
The soap operas don't have any hot people.
And people sing worse than the last batch
of rejects on Bulgerian Idol.
Imagine it: nothing to read, nothing to watch,
nothing to do.
Eternal boredom.
Maybe you can get a job as an accountant to...
liven up your life.
