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.