Introductory+Questions

1. What is the purpose of censorship? Is it beneficial? Explain your thinking. Reflect on SOPA and explain how you feel about censorship. I think the purpose of censorship is to shield the people of a society from communication to about things that might be inconvenient, offensive, or sensitive, things that might cause rebellion, and conflict amongst themselves. In some cases it may be beneficial to the welfare of the people, but it can also cause resentment towards the government/power that is holding the information back. In Fahrenheit 451, the government has banned books, which some people agree that this fact is respectable, and others do not. There are many characters in the book that are absolutely against this "burning of books," such as the woman who choose to be burned with hers. The government thinks that they are protecting their citizens from conflict by burning the books, but are really doing a cruel thing by destroying peoples belongings. There is a positive fact on what the government is doing, it keeps everything in order, and keeps a stable society, but the society has to live by strict rules that don't really make anyone "happy." So, censorship can sometimes be beneficial, but most of the times it just causes more rebellion. I feel that censorship is wrong, because I think that everyone should be aware of the problems we face. If the government shields a society from something, and they find out what that is, the people might become angry at the government for not telling them what was going on. SOPA, for example has aroused some resentment, and many people do not like the fact that the government is backing the act. Many think that the proposed legislation "threatens free speech and innovation." I agree with this, because I think that people should be able to share their media freely, siting the source, but still being able display it to other people.

Censorship is the act of examining books, movies, web articles, etc. and removing unacceptable parts. Censorship is usually done by governments and is done in many countries. Certain time periods in histury, however, have had stronger censorship than others. Most of these times were during wars. Our novel, Farenheit 451, demonstrates one of those times. The purpose of censorship is to block information from the citizens of a country or group if countries. Censorship is used either to protect citizens from harmful information, or to keep important information from them. I do not think that censorship is beneficial for any kind of government. If the citizens find out about what is being kept from them, they will most likely be very mad at the government. This could easily lead to rebellion and much fighting. In the US, there is a big debate over censorship. The debate is over a new house bill called SOPA. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. The debate is over whether or not to issue the bill. SOPA will give the US government a much sronger hold on the activities that occur on the internet. It will also increase the amount of censorship in our country. SOPA will decrease the amount of websites, pictures, videos, etc. that are deemed appropriate by the government. Overall, I think that a little censorship is good, but the level that SOPAis suggesting is not. By taking away a lot of these works on the internet, peoples' creativity and ingenuity is actually inhibited. I do not think that SOPA should be approved.

Censorship is the act of censoring or the act of repressing impulses, ideas, and feelings while preventing them from entering consciousness in their original, undistinguished form. Censorship is often used by higher authority to control a population. If no one can spread ideas then only your ideas manifest. This, for example, in 399 B.C. Socrates was sentenced to drink poison because he had "corrupted" the youth with his teachings. These teachings were against the Greek tradition. The idea that censorship is beneficial depends on your perspective. It can be used to to stop piracy and theft. Censorship can be thought to be advantageous because, similar to the novel Fahrenheit 451, when no ideas are spread no one is offended. This does have a downfall. In a time when people are yearning for knowledge taking it away from them is destructive. Censorship can also be an unfair restriction of valuable knowledge based on things like the authors opinion. A good example of censorship is the S.O.P.A act. S.O.P. A. is interesting due to its view on censorship. It is the Stop Online Piracy Act that promotes prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property (intellectual property and counter-fit goods). This seems slightly similar to the goal of the firemen. They are trying to promote things like creativity but seem to be destroying it. I'm torn about the actual prosperity this will bring. I do think that we should crack down on piracy. But with this said different things can be considered piracy. I think that stopping piracy will constrict freedom of speech. Overall, I think piracy should be watched but this seems a little too "controlled".

Censorship is the act of removing bits of art, movies, music, etc, which contain material deemed inappropriate for some or all people. The purpose of censorship is to protect people from profanity such as curse, violence, sex, and so on. Another purpose of censorship is to not let companies or people showing other companies copyrighted material such as images, slogans, and other media. In my opinion I think it's not beneficial, but to some extent necessary. As an example you don't want a little kindergardener exposed to profanity like curse words. The extent the government or SOPA is going with though is completely wrong. Lets say an innocent man takes a picture with his innocent wife drinking some soda, but it's not a store brand it's Coca-cola. So you would think, "Oh well it's harmless they're not advertising Coke or saying it's their-" but Coke thinks that the man is advertising his soda saying it's his own product and he should be punished. So the man is taken into custody just because he let the label show in his picture. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. In other words they consider innocuously and accidently showing the label piracy and should go to jail for 5 years. That leads me to my next arguement. When Michael Jackson died because of his Doctor overdosing him, the doctor was sent to jail for 4 years. SOPA claims that illegally tansferring music from Michael Jackson is piracy you should go to jail for 5 years. So killing him has a shorter sentence than loading his music to the internet? I rest my case. 2. Discuss imagery in Part One. Choose a particularly strong passage and write a paragraph about the images that the passage creates in your mind. Point out details that appeal to all five of your senses. A powerful usage of imagery I found was where Montag discovers that his wife has taken an overdose of sleeping pills in an attempt of suicide. As he opens the door, He hears "The little misquito-delicate dancing hum in the air, the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest." This describes the music coming from his wife Mildred's thimble radios. He then imagines what his room looks like, with his wife laying stretched out on the bed, with those thimble radios in her ears, not sleeping. As he feels his way towards his bed, "an instant befor his foot hit the object on the floor he knew he would hit such an object." He flicks on his ignighter, and sees Mildred. "Her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall; but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she felt no shadow. There was only the singing of the thimble-wasps in her tamped-shut ears, and her eyes all glass, and breath going in and out, softly, faintly, in and out of her nostrils, and her not caring whether it came or went, went or came." This describes what he sees when he looks at her, as he realizes what has happened. He calls the emergency hospital, and men come with two machines, "One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there." The other machine "pumped all of the blood from the body and replaced it with fresh blood and serum." They don't seem to care about the situation at all. "They stood with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them blink or squint." When they leave, Montag takes a sleep lozenge, and awakes the next morning to have Mildred acting like there was nothing wrong at all. She doesn't seem to even recall attempting suicide.

Ray Bradbury uses many differnent types of imagery in part 1 of Farenfeit 451. There were many passages that were enhanced because of how he described them. One passage that stuck out to me in particular, was the first passage of the book. The passage describes a burning of a house full of books and how pleasing it is for Montag. It was full of imagery that appealed to all five of my senses. one of my favorite parts said "the great python spitting its venomous kerosene". This is a good example of visual imagery. Also, I could hear the blast of fire that engulfed the house. Then the house wa in flames and I could feel the searing heat on my back. From the fire I could smell and taste the smoke that covered everything. There were many other uses of imagery, but these were a few that stood out to me. I think Bradbury did a great job describing that scene.

Ray Bradbury often paints vivid pictures to allow the reader to have a deeper understanding of what is going on. When Bradbury talks about the mechanical hound the sensory language is incredible. You can see, feel, and hear the "...gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse". "The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast". This passage puts you in Montag's shoes while you watch the great mechanical hound hold its keep. As "Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently,..." you are there. The beast is in your sights and you start to feel like he will come after you next. When "..its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws." you have formulated an image of this beast, at which point Bradbury's job is done. In the next few passages you "see" the hound chase Montag and after which the journey ends.

The author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, uses a lot of imagery and sensory in this book. I found this passage on page 33. It reads "Montag looked at these men whose faces were sunburnt by a thousand real and ten thousand imaginary fires, whose work flushed their cheeks and fevered their eyes. These men who looked steadily into their platinum igniter flames as they lit their eternally burning black pipes. I think this is a perfect example as imagery because it shows sensory very descriptively. You feel like you are actually their in the story with Guy at the Poker table.

see, smell, hear, feel, taste