My High School Literary Article About The Individual And The Collective
We’re always one step from tyranny.
For these two texts, it’s already too late.
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953): a firemen’s journey to enlightenment of books, society and identity.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Harrison Bergeron(1961): a short story of a boy who defied 2081 America’s equality.
Being closely written at the same time, our two authors lived through Communism, The Second World War and tyranny.
Both tales share an idea, the individual’s identity clashing with government control and the majority.
Individuality and our identities are the only protection we have against ideological tyranny, if violated through government or collective suppression, it disables the beauty of the human experience.
The majority's ideologies of equal outcome, if given power, will create adverse challenges for individuals: that’s us! For being an individual is a journey, a slow unfolding of identity. Bradbury and Vonnegut Jr. have their characters face these ideas head on, alongside the reader.
The Majority’s Society
In a society dictated by ideas of equity, our characters face the challenge of their dystopias’ ideologies.
Our authors have described society’s methods of equal outcome differently, however, their origins are quite the same.
Montag, since the start of his life, has been conditioned as a fire fighter, a role known for maintaining equality of knowledge and experience by you know… burning books.
He is a part of alternative America’s mission to suppress individuality—solving ‘inequality’. Captain Beatty, the fire chief of Montag’s fire station, is important in revealing Fahrenheit 451’s oppressive societal origins during his visit to a recovering Montag.
Whilst smoking his pipe in Montag’s living room, he states:
“It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the truck, thank God.”
No, no, no! Very repetitive, isn’t he?
His repetition wants to clarify that the government weren’t the ones to cause the undoing of individuality and freedom. It was actually the same individuals who made up the majority!
Even now in our modern word, social media and political correctness are leading down this path that Bradbury has already described in Beatty’s monologue.
The way characters speak in Fahrenheit 451is also on par with the exploitive, consumerist culture, that occurred during Bradbury’s time when the television was brought to the masses in the 1950s. Beatty is the epitome of sales-like spoken language,
“Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom!”
Bradbury deliberately has Beatty use punctuative onomatopoeia to grasp Montag’s attention (and ours). Consumerist culture has created an attention deficit within the world of Fahrenheit 451.
Now, even evident in real life, societal culture influences the way we speak: language being the main tool for communicating meaning and reality.
But Harrison Bergeron takes a whole different approach. The majority have taken a more physical toll on the human experience. The government uphold the values of equality (maybe a bit too much).
The opening of the story establishes a clear and obvious tone for what society is like in this dystopian America,
“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.”
Very equal, aren’t they?
The biblical reference of “all human beings are created alike in the image of God” gives an allusion to how the majority has taken the meaning too literally.
Equal outcome has become their new God.
Society has placed equity as a higher power, the government are enforcing it until the people become submissive.
The third sentence of this extract is also ominous; we can’t help but question the validity of the statement knowing true equality is impossible, and tyranny being part of the playbook.
Another reason for why individuality was devalued in this society was the government, yet it was the people who elected their leaders and politicians that let absolute equality be deemed as law.
“All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213thAmendments to the Constitution…”
For context, to change amendments in the American Constitution, they must be passed through the senate, congress and the American people. In current 2022, there are only 22 amendments.
Describing a stupid amount of amendments implies a more aggressive government interference with the people, who are submissive to this tyranny, diverging from the founding ideas of the Constitution: protecting individual rights from government control.
What Vonnegut Jr. has used is nuanced irony between the new amendments and the original ideas of American liberty. Also, the clause can be read differently, the subtext implies ‘equality’ can be replaced with the more accurate word of ‘tyranny’.
Between the two texts, the spear heads of society are quite similar. The Handicapper General of the United States Diana Moon Glampers is comparable to Captain Beatty: individuals responsible for maintaining terror and controlling the people.
The majority have surrendered their identity and given power to individuals, like the Handicapper General and the Captain, abusing it in their name. As the tyranny extends to all parts of society, the people are too ignorant of their government’s control on life: thought, freedom and outcome.
The Individual
Although both rebels of their respective societies, Guy and Harrison are quite different in their journeys as individuals. Harrison is the fully actualised individual, while Montag has only started the journey.
For most of his life, Montag had no real identity outside of his job and shallow marriage. He has no goals, dreams or wishes; he simply existed. However, Montag’s sidewalk strolls hints a slight difference from the majority, as it has been described as strange to walk outside of in their world, as most drive cars for the thrill of it.
Montag’s journey as an individual begins when he meets a unique person: Clarisse McClellan. Her first interaction with Montag is distinguished by her curiosity, hinting she sees potential of uniqueness in his identity,
“Are you happy?”
Clarisse tries to spark a human connection with Montag using a rhetorical question—because we all know how miserable Montag is. His journey of individuality starts, something that seems so absent in their world. Compared to the other conversations he has in the novel, his interactions with Clarisse seem more meaningful than the ball-and-chain he calls a wife Millie. We assume there to be more meaningful connections within a marriage, but in this world, it is meaningless for these individuals connected by this ‘sacred’ bond.
Unlike Montag, Harrison is very much at the end in his journey (quite literally), it is when intruding on the television set Harrison displays his character fully as he unmasks, unchains and unveils his true self.
He announces himself,
“I am the Emperor! Even as I stand, I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived!”
The statement is bold and boisterous; a metaphor for how the people are subservient from their chains compared to un-handicapped Harrison. He is free to express his individuality, he cries out to the audience unapologetically for entitling himself the role of ‘emperor’. He can claim to be a greater ruler than any man as he is unbounded by the handicaps of the majority and his able to rule himself: the end goal of individuality.
And before his announcement, the tv broadcaster describes Harrison as individual unique by his characteristics alone.
“He is a genius and athlete…exactly seven feet tall…[revealing] a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.”
His traits are abnormal, making him a heightened individual, a crime to his country. As a reader, it makes us wonder the possibility for him to exist, as a 15-year-old might I add. The characteristics transcend reality, using the literary allusion of Thor, a literal god.
Both stories differ by the perspective they take of the Individual. However, they explain being an individual in a society is a journey embarked through the rejection of tyrannical ideologies and the majority.
Conclusion
In the modern age of technology, the relationship between the individual and the majority have been placed closer.
The majority and their ideology are an enemy to the individual’s ability to experience the roughness and beauty of life. An individual can only manifest themselves through articulating their identity in association with reality.
Our authors saw what ideas like Communism can create, tyranny on unimaginable levels.
And it’s still considered a good idea!
They write their stories to expose and protect the freedom we have as individuals. Social media, government, societal influence in real life slowly reflect what our authors have warned of: future dystopias pursuing radical equality.
It has happened before: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China. Could it happen again? Or is it a matter of time?
Our only protection from the majority’s tyranny is fully realising our identities and protecting our individuality.
Author's Note
I wrote this article for Internal Assessment Two for my English class. The context was we wrote an article for a credible and established website that specialised in the literature and texts. Funny story, I tried to have my assessment be written for my website rather than another literary website. Alas, I got shot down and had to settle with Electric Literature.
When giving the original draft of my article, my English teacher thought I was too academic and uptight compared to the work I upload to the website. (Yes, she has checked out this website.) I exclaimed to her, "I'm more casual on my website because it's not getting assessed!" After the feedback, I did some rework to add my quips and comments around the article. I believe calling Montag's wife a 'ball-and-chain' my magnum opus of comments in this article.
For what we needed to write, I didn't mind the two stories we had to read. Fahrenheit 451 was probably a perfect size, still wondering what happened to society after the bombs dropped and all that was left is a bunch of outcasts that can remember whole books.
Still, I have never been an A student with my English studies and I want my last year to be different. I attribute my apathy towards the subject for why I get mostly B's. I even wrote an article about it in why I sucked at it. So, I want to share my work.
And, it's fucking easier to upload something I've already written than try to write something new during times of assessments.