Avery Smith

11/19/20
Essay

Dystopian Worlds
Dystopian societies is a topic that is becoming more and more popular. Looking at them
and shows how the world could be, and they really make you think about how things are in your
own world. Simply just reading a book, or watching a movie, with a dystopian society can
change the way you think about your own world. Within the book Fahrenheit 451 and the movie
Dead
Poets Society you see characters learning to think for themselves, the difficulties they have
keeping face, and how much they change.
A lot happens to both Neil and Montag within their respective stories. Its clear
throughout both stories that they are influenced by another person who helps them to learn to
think for themselves.

In Fahrenheit 451, Montag really only has one person who helps him with
this. Clarisse shows Montag the beauty in the world. She talks to him and tells him about how
things used to be and how things are now. She doesnt mention books, but she shows him things
aren't right. She even had a huge impact on him after her death, as shown when he is reading for
the first time and says but Clarisses favorite subject

was herself (Bradburry 72). True,

Montag was curious about books before meeting Clarisse. This is evident because he has already
stolen some, but without talking to Clarisse he would have never read them or began to think
about society and how its very twisted. Neil faces a similar situation with Mr. Keating. From the
moment they meet, Keating is changing things up for the boys. In their first meeting alone he

does things that have never before been done in the school, taught them something that affected
them greatly, and got them thinking at least a little. From then on Keating keeps doing this. He
goes against the norms, and teaches the boys to think for themselves. When Neil is considering
acting, and he was unsure of what to do because his father said no, he went to Keating. Despite
having a very strong bond with the other boys, he still chose Keating for advice, which shows
what a strong impact he had on them. When he did go Keating, and Keating told him to go for it,
he listened to him. True not fully, but that was due to him still being afraid to go against his
father. But despite that evident fear, he still listens to Keating and goes for the acting. While Neil
did listen to Keating about the play, and Keating did change the way Neil thought, Keating still
wasnt responsible for Neils death, and should not have been fired. Keating didnt cause
anything wrong, he simply showed Neil how to be his own person.
Through everything that happens, its very difficult for Neil and Montag to retain their
beliefs. You can see this through the stories, as well has how they change in order to do so.
Montag faces all sorts of troubles in order to keep his beliefs. He must hide what he thinks in
order to keep his job and his wife, and when he does admit it to his wife she calls him crazy.
Despite having to lie about how he thinks and even taking the aggression from his wife when he
does tell her, he still keeps his beliefs. You can see these things are changing him too. At the
beginning of the book he is scared to think that way, but by the end he had turned in one of the
stolen books to Beatty, yelled poetry at Mildred and her friends, sought help from Faber, and
even killed in order to keep his beliefs. At the beginning of the book he was too scared to do any
of this. Comparing how Montag changes to how Neil changes shows you that Neil doesnt
change too much. At the beginning he is worried about being different, but readily accepts the

change soon after. He does defy his father, which is huge for him, but right after he goes back to
feeling the same way as before. Comparing these two really shows that Keating was correct
when he said most men lead a life of quiet desperation (Dead). Neil is quiet about what he
wants, and only really jumps at something once, and soon after falls back into his old ways of
thought. He truly lives this quote because he remains quiet about what he wants and continues to
live day to day desperate for something more. Comparing this to Montag, you can see that the
quote doesnt really apply to him, because as soon as he began to really think for himself, he did
something about it. However, Montag takes things very serious, and ends up going to extremes.
Keating says something else that really applies to these guys. Sucking all the marrow out of life
does not mean choking on the bone (Dead). This means, that you should go for life and take all
the changes you can to be happy, but at the same time you shouldnt get yourself into a position
that was worse than before or do something terrible to get to where you want to. You can see that
Neil really listens to this. While he tries to go for what he wants, he keeps things toned down and
tries not to get in too deep. Montag, however, could use this piece of advice. He goes for
everything he thinks will be helpful to him, though in the process of that he goes too far with it
and ends up losing everything he had in life and having to start over.
Throughout both The Dead Poets Society and Fahrenheit 451 the characters change quite
a lot. At the beginning of Fahrenheit 451 Montag loved to burn. He went with the social norms,
did his job and did it with joy, and didnt think for himself. By the end, however, he had stopped
going with the social norms, quit his job, found himself to be unhappy with how things were,
started thinking for himself, and took dramatic action to try and change things. The difference
between who Montag is as a person at the beginning of the novel is amazingly different from

who he is at the end. Neil is the same way. At the beginning of the movie, Neil is afraid to take
action for himself. He sits quietly while his father and officials in the school tell him what to do.
By the end of the movie, he had gone against what he was told multiple times, and began to think
for himself. Both characters face difficult circumstances that cause them to change, though
ultimately, Montag changes the most. This is evident from the fact that Montag gave up his
entire life and left everything he knew behind for the sake of trying to fix the situation with
books. While Neil does change a lot, by the end of the movie he is still caught between his own
wishes and the inability to ignore his fathers demands, and instead chooses to take his own life.
Throughout both stories, Neil and Montag face tons of problems and are faced with
things that truly change and shape who they are as people and how they think. There are a lot of
things impacting this, and a lot that happens to keep doing that. You see throughout their stories
that they have a lot of help from others, face difficulties to retain their beliefs, and change in
major ways. These men both face similar issues and deal with the same problems within their
dystopian societies. These stories can show you the things in your own society that are truly
twisted, and really make you think about how you live.

Works Cited
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York. Ballantine Publishing Group. 1953. Print.
Dead Poets Society. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, and Ethan
Hawke. Buena Vista Pictures. 1989. DVD.