preview

Theme Of Happiness In Fahrenheit 451

Better Essays

From the beginning of our lives, our parents, for the most part, want us to be happy. Pursuing that happiness becomes a goal that we strive for on an everyday basis. In America, it’s the American Dream. People come to this country in search of that elusive happiness. Ever since Thomas Jefferson wrote a very important sentence in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson), our goals have been the same; searching for that happiness no matter what. However, as Ray Bradbury writes, if we focus too much on those aspects that make us …show more content…

Eudaimonia was a term that The Greeks used which meant happiness. Although, some scholars have translated this word to “human flourishing” or “well-being of the spirit.” There were other terms that The Greeks had for virtue and moral wisdom. With that being said, if Aristotle saw the futuristic world that is portrayed in Fahrenheit 451, what would he think? Would he be pleased with the outcomes? Probably not. The false sense of happiness is something that would surly upset him and then adding the lack of leaning or virtue would upset any philosopher of the time. Physical Happiness Montag lives in a city that is very disconnected with the world around them. All they do is watch their “wall TVs” with “seashells” in their ears. Nature is something that they never admire, because they drive too fast and they do not have meaningful conversations with each other. It’s a world where everyone is just there without any actual knowledge of what it is to live. There was a study that was done by two psychologists from The University of Michigan, in this study they discovered that humans prefer nature over cities (Dye). For this study, the researchers asked people to look at two different photos, one of a city and the other of nature, and the people would pick the one that they preferred. There was a single exception, but that was of a urban park, so it was still in a sense nature. Cornell University conducted another study that found that

Get Access