Sunday, January 21, 2007

1/22 Fahrenheit 451 pp. 40-68

Q:

Captain Beatty tells Montag that firemen are the “happiness boys” and that they are custodians of “our piece of mind.” Why does he say this?

A:
He says that because the fireman burn controversial books. If the books are not there then no one gets offended and everyone is happy. That’s why they are called the “happiness boys”. The books also give people bad ideas and supposedly corrupt their minds. But because there are no books no one has a corrupt mind, which is why Beatty tells Guy they are custodians of “our piece of mind”.

What I am sort of confused on is how captain Beatty knows a lot of book titles and quotes form them. Not so much of quotes, but rather certain ideas. It doesn’t seem to me that Beatty would read the books.

What I dread

I shiver ran through my body as I looked over my shoulder. I turn around to see an endless wave stretching across the beach. As it towers over me I notice it start to curl and I know it’s going to break, it reminds me of a skyscraper crashing over me and I have no where to run. Frozen in fear, fumbling with that strap on my wrist hearing the crinkling of wet Velcro, I try to decide what to do. Thinking fast I gasp for air feeling the coldness of it rush against the inside of my throat burning it. I then dive under the cold liquid that makes me float thinking that the further I dive under it the less the ferocious beast will unleash it mighty power sending me tumbling underwater. Yet as I dive down further and further while it’s getting darker and darker while knowing I need to go a lot further… I stop; it was as if I ran into a glass wall. I panic realizing why I had stopped; my boogie board was still attached to my wrist, like a dog on a leash trying to chase a cat. I look up with my pupils enlarged in pure terror watching the bulge in the water crashing down onto the water. The bitter current throws me to the bottom of the ocean snapping the cable attached to my wrist. Clenching my wrist in pain I strike the hard bed of the ocean listening to the rushing water above me accompanied to the scrapping noise of my back against the coarse sand. Tumbling across the ocean floor I folded my legs in to jump with all my strength to the surface of the unforgiving water. Gasping for air I swallow the white wash that the vast wave had left, like the black ashes from a once raging fire. The intense blinding whiteness washes me ashore along with my board like I'm driftwood floating ashore from a horrible ship wreck. I grab my board and sprint along shore burning up my remaining energy as I head towards my spot on the beach. I collapse against the near molten sand from the intense heat of the sun, too drained to move, I lay there in pain… stomach burning to a crisp, my back bleeding profoundly as the ground surrounding me turned red from blood.