Fahrenheit 451- Analysis

One of the interesting things that I noticed in the novel was a lack of happiness, which had been replaced by assumed happiness. There's little logical reasoning behind the "happiness" here, aside from a statement that all people are free to do whatever they feel like doing, so long as it's mindless. Happiness seems to have become less of an emotion than a state of existence, and even then an assumed state of existence, not fully realized. I attribute this to something I'll call contrast, the comparison of two different things. This not only defines happiness, but also a few other emotions in the community.

I doubt I really need to define contrast, but in essence the theory would be that everything has to have an opposite; life and death, light and darkness, happiness and sadness. Otherwise, there's only one thing existing, and without anything to compare it to it's just normal business of the day. It loses its power and effect. The community has had so much "happiness" and has such a mindless life of pleasure that it begins to lose sight of what happiness really is. Well, who cares, really? Happiness is a good thing, and we are happy, we've got everything; isn't that what's important? NOPE. It's no different from being absolutely miserable if there's nothing to compare that to. Even if you can say you're happier than you were yesterday, you can still feel happiness. These people have lost the will to take the time to compare. They just think they're happy. They know there's an opposite, but that has nothing to do with them, so it's out of their minds. However, when something bad happens, they don't have the slightest clue what to do. If you've ever sat in a room with the lights off, you'll eventually develop a faint "night vision" and be able to see the outlines of things in the room. However, if the lights go on, you're blind as a bat. After the one night when Mildred is found almost dead from sleeping pills, she acts as if there was no reason for her to kill herself. She is happy, after all. What really happened was that she tried to kill herself, because she didn't know how to stop the light that was bothering her. When people who have lived in fake happiness all their life suffer tragedy, they are blinded. They expect the light to just go out. Some block it out themselves, by racing around in the Beetle cars or watching mindless TV. Others can't block the lights out, and kill themselves, afraid of the light, unable to deal with it. In fact, all people are afraid of the light, because they are never really are able put it out, but still try to block it out, like pulling a cover over your head. When Montag began his escape, everyone was most likely terrified, and needed the "snap ending" of the scapegoat to put their fears at ease. They would have gone bonkers if they thought that a killer was on the loose. Just put the unhappy deed out of sight, out of mind, leave it to itself, it'll burn out if you ignore it. In this way, they can "know" they are "happy" again because the bad guys lose and the good guys win. They need that light out, that sadness kept away from them, because they can't cope with it.

Following this reasoning, it can be inferred how people became bored. As Montag said in the beginning of the novel, there are several recreational hours, which the people have to appease their boredom, to be happy doing what they enjoy to do (so long as it's not thinking). But again there is only one of a pair here, not between boredom and pleasing activity, but rather of what you want to do and what you do to pass the time away. I'm going to infer that those who did not frantically spend their free time doing something mindless were the oddballs of the society. In this way, the activities that are being done lack the possibility for true appreciation, for real enjoyment. It's just something else that needs to be done; you want to be happy, don't you, so just do it. It's not what they made time for, but what they were given time for. If you don't have a time when you're staring at a wall, bored out of your skull, you can't possibly think up something fun to do, something to save you from boredom. Put another way, the reason Christmas presents are special is because you only get them once a year, and it is a way that someone else can express appreciation for all you've done, for who you are. You wait bored out of your skull the night before and then jump up excited the next morning, eager to see what you have and then choose what you want to do with your gifts. If you got a Christmas present every day, then it really wouldn't be special, but rather a "Well what it it today? A quick speed down that street over there or a few hours of clowns chopping each other to bits?" The people are being given the gift of everything to do and no time to decide what they want to do. They are unable to take the time to choose and enjoy, but are rushed on to do something else. It's all just a distraction from the fact that you'd really prefer to be somewhere else.

Basically, the community has tried to shut out the negatives to their positives. They believe that they can enjoy their lives if sadness and boredom are eliminated. They cannot be eliminated. When the opposite comes at them and blinds them, makes them uncomfortable, they are unable to think of what they should do in order to continue with their lives. They cannot resolve their problems, because they have never really experienced these things very often. Without a response, many kill themselves or degrade further, climbing into their own dark corner of a room, trying to block out the light of negative emotions. They obsess their lives around mindless fluff, in a way setting themselves out of life in order not to suffer the pain of unhappiness. If you have no tome to live, you cannot feel sadness or boredom; if you already cannot find happiness or amusement, then there's no problem in blocking out all emotions entirely, becoming a mindless drone, racing around life's bend to the next thing that keeps your mind off of how miserable you really are.