Waterloo Bridge. By Claude Monet

A.N. This story is supposed to reference Claude Monet's loss of vision later in life. just for those of you who thought the vision loss thing was out of randomness.

Almost dark and so foggy, I could hardly see. Was it the really fog, or was it my own eyes that were going. I’d left the car behind many blocks ago. My apartment had to be just ahead. Cars drive by, only visible by their headlights. I turn and look for my street at the crosswalk. The fog covers everything in sight. A small glimmer of light escapes from the clouds, if only for a brief moment, and flashes across the water. I can see the outlines of bridge leading to my apartment, shining on the horizon and I can see clearly. The black haze that usually shrouds my eyesight is gone. The sun completely separates itself from the clouds and for a brief moment, breaks through the fog. and then.. The clouds come back, enfolding the sun. the water is bleak, the fog blankets the city and I know, I will never see the water so beautiful again.

Fahrenheit 451 essay

Guy Montag represents a vision of American here there are no free thinkers. No people who spend time alone to read or think. A place where technology fills depression, love, every empty gap. Guy Montag lives in a world much like our own.

Even family is replaced by television. A popular program called “The Family” gives the viewer a spoon fed experience of what it is like to have an actual family. However The Family is not real. It is a superficial glance at what a family might be. although the television bradbury experienced was very different from the wall screens in Fahrenheit 451, television in the book is not all that different from television we experience today. People can get sucked in to it for many hours and not come out, go back to the same program, day after day.

In Fahrenheit 451 Montag’s wife is Vacant, Ignorant and obsessed with television. She has no love for Montag and see’s him only as a provider of money. This is the average person in Fahrenheit 451. Yet, Mildred is deeply unhappy. She’s severely bothered by the fact that her life is empty and filled with hours of mindless television. But in this world, it's Mildred’s job to be happy. In fact, it’s hard to say that anyone’s happy when they have no free will.

It is clear that even today we are close to this reality however, there are ways to avoid it. . we always try to overlook our problems and pretend that we can do no wrong but, to continue doing this is exactly what leads to Bradbury’s nightmarish vision of the future. But just as Motag stopped and thought about his life, so can we. We can break away from passive thinking and make our own choices and perhaps make a difference in which way we are going as a whole.

fahrenheit 451- beatty

Really, I think Beatty wanted to die. He understood the world around him better than Montag and knew that there was no way out of it other than death. It's ironic that Beatty, despite being the chief firemen is the most well read character in the entire novel. Beatty also seems to be making biblical references. Even when Montag gets away from the city, he's uncertain where he's really going and Faber is on a bus to a place that likely doesn't exist anymore. Beatty, in his old age, has actually tried to rationalize the dystrophic world he lives in by making a point against books. Beatty, I've always pictured as an older version of Montag. One that doesn't see hope in the world he lives in and has lost the will to live. Beatty only threatened and provoked Montag so that he could die. The only thing that separates Beatty from Montag is age.

Patriots essay

What is a patriot? A patriot is someone who serves his or her country but, to many words, there is a deeper meaning than a simple definition can show you. People all take the meaning of patriotism differently so, when you twist and bend the meaning enough, you get an end result that isn’t quite patriotism anymore but, ethnocentric. As America grows older, people bend the meaning of words like ‘patriotism’ more and more. So a question arises: does patriotism even still hold its original values or has it been debased beyond meaning?
What is a nation? A nation is the world? Yet, to many people, ethnocentrism has replaced patriotism. The love for their country is still there but, a love or even acceptance of others is not. Patriotism isn’t just confined to a single country. Aren’t all people on Earth our fellow countrymen? Though political borders decide our physical prison they will not decide the fates of our minds. Other denizens of Earth may not think as we do, speak as we do, they may not even like our ways of life but is killing and discriminating against others really what America stands for or was built upon?
What is a patriot? If you need to have meaningful definitions of the word then find anyone who devotes themselves to their country and their fellow man. Though the word ‘patriot’ is always flexible, will always bend to your will, a real patriot will not. A real patriot will stand by what he believes in right rather than conform to the will of someone who has no morals. Patriotism is a part of much deeper feelings. Some that has not even been put to words yet. When loyalties go that deep even the greatest wordsmith cannot bend them. For those feelings and emotions are not in his heart and mind and if they are, they are only on the surface. A true patriot is a person who respects all others. A person matters.