The Journey to Enlightenment

The Journey to Enlightenment

Imagine a person placed in a different house, with people they have never met. Imagine this person living in completely different society with different cultures and beliefs. At first how would this person feel? This person would not automatically accept their new life, they would they hold on to their previous knowledge of the world. By doing this they are resisting change and attempting to maintain order. The original people from the society would pity his inability to accept the “truth”. Therefore, the struggle of enlightenment and oblivion is derived.

This allegory mirrors the situations in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the text “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, and the film Pleasantville directed by Gary Ross. The three protagonists from these works each experience deviation from their everyday lives. This results in becoming enlightened to the truths of their societies. One must first be diverted from the normalities of society in order to be truly enlightened.

In the first work, Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist, Guy Montag, lives in a highly regulated society, that burn books and censors everything. The government hires fireman to burn any remaining books. The firemen burn the books with a passion, and also take down the houses where the books have been found with scorching flames. The protagonist of the novel, Guy Montag has a career as a fireman. Although eventually he comes out of his oblivion and becomes interested in books, he still is not able to shake off the demanding status quo of society. Until, he meets a young girl, Clarisse McClellan.

Clarisse was different than anybody Guy had ever met. Clarisse loved to talk, but not about what others in their society did. She loved to talk about people, her thoughts, her feelings, problems and situations that are taking place that no one else seemed to care about. She looked and Guy when he talked, and she asked questions that made him think. Which was something that people in the Fahrenheit society never did. Clarisse became a doppelganger for the future Guy Montag. It is true that Guy never had to enter a different world to become enlightened but, because of Guys exposure to Clarisse, who was completely different from any other members of their society, and the bond that the two shared, Guy learned new facts about the society that he lived in, he also discovered new things about life that he was blind to before.

In the second work, The Allegory of the Cave, there are, in a way two different societies. The enlightened and the non-enlightened. The enlightened society lives out in the world, and the non-enlightened society is placed a cave. A small handful of people live there, chained from neck to neck so they cannot turn their heads, staring at a wall in front of them. The shadows cast on the wall of different objects is the only thing that they know.