BW: 21 October 2015
1. What’s weird about this painting?
2. What’s the point? What is it trying to show?
Tension
Tension
The temple bell stops—
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.
Bashō (1644-94)
(translated by Robert Bly)
Tension
• The quality of balanced opposites
OR
• Contradictions in the text
Summer Skin (2005)
Death Cab For Cutie
Squeaky swings and tall grass
The longest shadows ever cast
The water's warm and children swim
And we frolicked about in our summer skin
I don't recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor Day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin
-On the night you left I came over
And we peel the freckles from our shoulders
Our brand new coats so flushed in pink
And I knew your heart I couldn't win
'Cause the seasons change was a conduit
And we left our love in our summer skin
Objective
& Purpose
• Take notes on the background to Fahrenheit 451.
• By gaining background, you will better
understand the complexities of the text.
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• Identify and explain a tension in the opening of
F451.
• Learn a way that themes are developed: through
tension.
Fahrenheit 451 (1953): Background
Genre, Author, & Archetypes/Main Ideas
Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
• Raised in Los Angeles, California where he befriended
celebrities.
• After graduation from high school in 1938, Bradbury
couldn't afford to go to college, so he went to the local
library instead. "Libraries raised me," he later said.
• A prolific writer during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.
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WW2
McCarthyism & The Red Scare
The Space Race
The Cold War
1950s America
• Famously prolific, Bradbury wrote for several hours every
day throughout his entire life, allowing him to publish more
than 30 books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous
poems, essays, screenplays and plays.
Ray Bradbury
• Though Bradbury won many honors and awards
throughout his life, his favorite was perhaps being
named "ideas consultant" for the United States Pavilion
at the 1964 World's Fair. "Can you imagine how excited
I was?" he later said about the honor. "'Cause I'm
changing lives, and that's the thing. If you can build a
good museum, if you can make a good film, if you can
build a good world's fair, if you can build a good mall,
you're changing the future. You're influencing people,
so that they'll get up in the morning and say, 'Hey, it's
worthwhile going to work.' That's my function, and it
should be the function of every science fiction writer
around. To offer hope. To name the problem and then
offer the solution. And I do, all the time."
Genre
Dystopian
Genre
• Dystopian (Reoccurring Themes)
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Marred and downtrodden societies
A society worse than the society the reader lives in
Magnification of social problems
Encroachment of civil rights
"Herd" mentality, rather than individualism
Protagonist are considered leaders, rebels or saviours
Protagnists are intelligent, resourceful and courageous
The common man is dumb and wasteful
Plenty of violence
A subjective or skewed "happy ending"
Triumph over grim circumstances
Genre
Science Fiction
Genre
• Science Fiction (Reoccurring Themes)
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Robots
Futuristic science and technology
Alterations of the human body and mind
Collective consciousness
End of the universe or humanity
Human fears
Identity
Isolation and Alienation
Military Conflicts
The Nature of Reality (Philosophy and Religion)
Archetypes & Main Ideas
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The Hero’s Journey
The Hero: Guy Montag
The Mentor: Faber
The Villain or The
Shadow: Captain Beatty
• The Loner or Outcast:
Clarisse
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Censorship
Critical Thought
Conformity
Television and its effect
on reading
Fahrenheit 451
• While reading the opening, make a list of at
least 5 tensions that you notice in the text.
Check for Understanding
• Describe Guy Montag. What is his personality?
What does he look like? Etc.
• Describe the world of the novel.
• Describe Clarisse. What is her personality?
What does she look like?
Tension
Closure
• From one tension that you identified, explain
why it is significant? (3 sentences)
Closure
• Identify a reoccurring theme from science
fiction or the dystopian genre in Fahrenheit
451. Explain this reoccurring theme in the
context of the novel (3 sentences).
– For example, maybe you see the theme of
violence in Fahrenheit 451, as that is a universal
theme of the dystopian genre. What does this
violence look like in F451? Who is perpetrating it?
What is the effect? What is the cause? Etc.
BW
22 October 2015
• Through the course of the first 30 pages,
explain Montag’s change or development. (3
sentences)
• Describe Mildred. What is she like? What does
she look like?
Objective
& Purpose
• Take notes on the context of Fahrenheit 451.
• By gaining context (just like background), you will
better understand the complexities of the text.
_______________________________________
• Explain how themes are developed in F451.
• Writing to Explain: Practice SSS, explanations, and
elaborations.
Fahrenheit 451 (1953): Context
Culture, Politics, and Society
Culture & Society of the 1950s
Just What Is It …? (1956)
1950s America
• “America at this moment,” said the former
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in
1945, “stands at the summit of the world.”
During the 1950s, it was easy to see what
Churchill meant. The United States was the
world’s strongest military power. Its economy
was booming, and the fruits of this
prosperity–new cars, suburban houses and
other consumer goods–were available to
more people than ever before.
Culture & Society of the 1950s
Excerpt from “America” by Allen Ginsberg (1956)
America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
murder.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
Politics of the 1950s
• The Cold War
• McCarthyism
– The Red Scare
Theme Development
• Through character: Clarisse and Mildred
1. What theme does Clarisse develop? Explain and
provide one quote. Work on SSS and follow this
structure.
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State the theme
Explanation (In other words, …)
Provide quote using SS
Explain the Significance of the quote and how it
relates back to the theme
2. What theme does Mildred develop? Explain and
provide one quote.
Theme Development
• Through language (specifically, figurative language)
• Close Read: p.10-18. Identify 5 examples of figurative language.
Write down the quote (Bradbury 10).
3. Explain a theme that is developed through Bradbury’s
use of figurative language.
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State the theme
Explanation (In other words, …)
Provide quote using SS
Explain the Significance of the quote and how it relates back
to the theme
Theme Development
• Through rhetoric (specifically, repetition)
4. Explain a theme that is developed through
Bradbury’s use of repetition.
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State the theme
Explanation (In other words, …)
Provide quote using SS
Explain the Significance of the quote and how it
relates back to the theme
Theme Development
• Through _________.
• HW—Find five other ways that Bradbury develops his
themes in the book. We have discussed the following:
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Tension
Character
Figurative language
Repetition
• Think—literary devices (such as symbolism) or rhetorical
devices (such as rhetorical questions).
• Do research if you need, but along with the five ways,
provide one quote and explanation for each. DUE TUESDAY