451

I love Fehrenheit 451. I've been a huge fan of dystopian literature for a few years now, and am so glad that we were assigned this one because I hadn't read it yet. I'm very happy that I can add it to my repertoire of dystopian lit knowledge to hopefully bring into a class designed around this important genre someday.

That being said, it always amazes me how so many of these books follow the same general format-- boy is a perfect member of his sick sad society, boy meets free-thinking girl who corrupts him with her "perniscious" influence, boy grows disillusioned with society, boy and girl strike back (sometimes together, sometimes not), something messed up happens to girl (death, total forced assimilation into said society), boy runs off to live in the wild amongst renegade intellects, society crumbles/stays at large. I like to think me and my boyfriend's story so far pretty much adheres perfectly to this construct, sans the part about something messed up happening to girl...yet...!

While Fehrenheit451 pretty much adheres to that same plot structure sequence by sequence, I like the little twists it throws in with professor and the whole concept of there being no books at all. I'd love to teach this book to an upper level high school class-- I'd also love to teach it to my more disillusioned students, as I think theres quite a bit of connection one could draw between the attitudes of beatty and the other firechiefs and much of the way education seems to be run these days. I'd be interested in finding a way to get reluctant/resistant students really interested in reading ithis book.