Pursuing Of Authenticity In An Alienated World

Ray Bradbury is a science fiction writer who is not only very famous in America but also very influential around the world.Fahrenheit 451,published in 1953,is one of his most famous novels.In the novel,Ray Bradbury describes the process of Montag‘s rebellion and salvation in the alienated world.Bradbury expresses his criticism on America of 1950 s and concerns about the existential problems of human being in Fahrenheit 451.There are many researches in the novel both abroad and home,but few study the alienation embodied in the novel.The concept of alienation is very crucial in existentialist thought.This thesis tries to take Existentialism as the theoretical formation to analyze the manifestations of alienation,hoping to explore the causes of alienation and trying to find out the ways to survive in the alienated society.The whole thesis will be divided into three chapters.The first chapter analyzes the manifestations of Montag‘s alienation by using the concept of ―They‖ of Heidegger and ―Look‖ of Sartre.The manifestations will be analyzed from three aspects: self-alienation,alienation in social level and in family level.As an individual,Montag is always influenced and restricted by others and controlled by their preference.He doesn‘t think about anything and does everything as others do.Montag expects real communication and sincere emotion,but it is full of apathy and distrust in all kinds of relationships both in social level and family level.The first chapter aims to express that alienation is ubiquitous in the novel through the analysis.The second chapter combines the reality of the early 1950 s in America to explore the causes of alienation.At that time,the rapid growth of media and the advance of technology make people live in a world which is accumulated by amusement and consumption,and people begin to lose the ability of thinking for human‘s activities.So this chapter explains the causes of alienation combined with the social situation.First,technology contributes to the development of mass production which provides means to place individuals in subjection to ―they‖.Second,being immersed in the fantasy world brought by audiovisual media,people start to ignore the reality which makes the alienation of interpersonal relationship more serious.Third,education aims to produce conformists instead of creative people,which makes people unable to think independently and speeds up the process of alienation.The third chapter discusses the ways to survive from alienation—pursuing authenticity.Clarisse serves as the ―call of conscience‖ for Montag.Both the old lady and Professor Faber serve as Montag‘s spiritual mentors.Under the influence and instruction of these three people,Montag finally realizes that he has always lived an inauthentic life.The authentic understanding of conscience and death provides the possibility for pursuing authenticity,but only through making choices and taking the responsibilities can people make the possibility become real.When Montag chooses to have a conscience and finally embraces his impending death instead of letting it happen resignedly,he becomes authentic.The future society described in Fahrenheit 451 accuses mass production,audiovisual media and intellectually-undemanding eduction of causing people alienated from both themselves and Others,readers can see Ray Bradbury‘s criticism on the spiritual crisis of American people in the novel.Through the analysis of the novel from Existentialism,this thesis discusses existential problems of human beings and aims to encourage people to seek the meaning of life and explore the significance of free thought for the development of human civilization in a world filled with explosion of information and technology.