Monday

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it  since you were really bothered?  About something important,  about something real?” Montag, Fahrenheit 451

Return to the Cave - Read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

“Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! I don't hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it. God, Millie, don't you see? An hour a day, two hours, with these books, and maybe…"'

"Nobody listens any more. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read." 

Questioning Truth and Reality

- If Plato presents the shadows, or images, as a false and misleading reality would he think the same way about art?

• Look closely at the evolution of Greek sculpture. How does this serve as a visual example of Plato’s philosophy? 

The Road to Enlightenment

Compare the message delivered through these two school crests (Harvard and Oxford), the Allegory of the Cave, and connections to specific passages in Fahrenheit 451.

Conformity and McCarthyism

- Senator from Wisconsin during the 1950’s, and a former Marine

- Gained national recognition due to a 1950 speech he delivered in Wheeling, WV

- In this speech, he accused a list of 205 members of the U.S. State Department  of being members of the Communist Party.

• McCarthy and America feared the spread of Communism.

“Fear transformed American Communists from a minor nuisance into a national obsession. Fear created McCarthyism, an intense effort to root out Communists from every corner of American society by any means necessary—even if those means violated traditional American values: Due process. Civil liberties. Constitutional rights.”

“The culture of fear created a society of conformity, a politics of repudiation. The results weren't always pretty. Senator Joseph McCarthy, the most prominent Communist-hunter of the period, was a reckless alcoholic demagogue. Unknown numbers of innocents had their lives ruined by a loyalty-security apparatus that knew few checks or balances.”

How does the fear of being different change us as individuals? How would it change a society?

Levittown- A Conformist Utopia

• A newer and simpler American Dream for all?
• Who is in...and who is out in this “paradigm” for 1950’s society. Levittown housing policies.

Homework- Read to page 40.

Tuesday

Mother’s little Helper

“The Hearth and the Salamander” - Passage Analysis

“It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (p. 1). 

“He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back” (p. 9). 

“There are too many of us....There are billions of us and that’s too many. Nobody knows anyone” (p. 14). 

“He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other” (p. 21). 

“I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way?...I’m afraid of them and they don’t like me because I’m afraid” (p. 27). 

“Had he ever seen a fireman that didn’t have black hair, black brows, a ery face, and a blue-steel shaved but unshaved look? These men were all mirror images of himself!” (p. 30). 

“And he remembered thinking then that if she [Mildred] died, he was certain he wouldn’t cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death...” (p. 41). 

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” (p. 49). 

“People want to be happy....Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these” (p. 56). 

“Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide rule, measure, and equate the universe, which just won’t be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely” (p. 58). 

“We’ve got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we’re in such a mess, you and the medicine nights, and the car, and me and my work....We haven’t anything to go on, but maybe we can piece it out and gure it and help each other” (p. 63-64). 

Conformity and the 1950’s - A Plasticized Reality

• “But I want it to be your decision, not mine, and not the Captain's. But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority. We all have our harps to play. And it's up to you now to know with which ear you'll listen." (104)
• Compare this to the Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: “Envy is ignorance, and imitation is suicide.”
• Compare this to the Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
• “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members.” 

Levittown- The American Dream in a Box

Read the following article on Levittown .

• How do the benefits of the G.I. Bill aid in making the Levitt’s dream a reality?
• How were the houses constructed? 
• F.D.R. said, “A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their land, is unconquerable.” Who was able to achieve this “dream” of owning a house in Levittown? Who was left out?
• What were some of the other requirements that came along with owning a house in Levittown?
• Take a side. Was Levittown the symbol of American “can-do” or was it a symbol of conformity and exclusion?

“All the same…"

• “Across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts.” (60)
• Compare to the lyrics from Malvina Reynolds’ “Ticky-tack Houses"

Malvina Reynolds, Little Boxes (1963)

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses all went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and there's lawyers, and business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course and drink they're martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

Questions:

• How does the shape of the houses contribute to the theme of the song?
• Look at the progression of the song. It starts with the adults, and then ends with the children. Why this progression and what does this progression indicate/suggest?
• How does the repeated use of words/phrases contribute to the theme of the song?

Into the Houses

• “The threat of invasion and subversion in the Cold War era led Americans to seek consensus and conformity, in politics and in culture. The rise of consumer culture in the same period, driven by an economic boom, a population surge, and suburban development gave rise to a middle class with certain expectations about material culture and behavior. In popular culture many television programs focused on the ideal nuclear family and, with more and more people purchasing televisions, this ideal spread throughout society. The shows reflected accepted social patterns and emphasized the traditional roles of fathers leaving the house to go to work and mothers staying home to raise children and take care of the house.”

Homework- Read to page 70.

Wednesday

Scavenger Hunt! 

1. Look up 1950’s advertisements in a Google search.

2. Select and analyze 10 advertisements that you feel would lead to a strange conformity. Go through the four step process of visual analysis. Look for Freudian subliminal messages—this became the thrust of the advertising industry in the 1950’s on Madison Avenue.

3. Present.

Homework- Read to page 90.

Thursday

Reading time

Small Group Discussion:

“The Sieve and the Sand”

1. Discuss questions from the study guide. 

2. Discuss the following quotes:

“Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insanemistakes!” (p. 70).

“The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great tonload of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium,and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run, there was no place to run...” (p. 75).

“I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s a regularpeppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercialproducts that every worshiper absolutely needs” (p. 77-78).

“I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did notspeak and thus became guilty myself” (p. 78).

“Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There isnothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universetogether in one garment for us” (p. 79).

“The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-ninepercent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine,or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore” (p. 82).

“Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents” (p. 85).“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn” (p. 100).

Homework- Read to page 120. 

Friday

Peer Editing

Small Group Discussion:

“The Sieve and the Sand”

1. Discuss questions from the study guide. 

2. Discuss the following quotes:

“Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insanemistakes!” (p. 70).

“The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great tonload of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium,and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run, there was no place to run...” (p. 75).

“I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s a regularpeppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercialproducts that every worshiper absolutely needs” (p. 77-78).

“I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did notspeak and thus became guilty myself” (p. 78).

“Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There isnothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universetogether in one garment for us” (p. 79).

“The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-ninepercent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine,or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore” (p. 82).

“Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents” (p. 85).“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn” (p. 100).

Isolationism and Alienation

• Alienation is the feeling of being cut off from oneself, from others, and from a sense of the meaning of life.
• Bureaucracies or authoritarian systems can create a sense of alienation when persons believe there is little they can do to go against the status quo or change the system. 
• What are the factors in our lives that tend to alienate us from others? What makes it difficult to have conversations with others in which we discuss personally important issues and ideas? What might a person do to overcome the sources of alienation in her/his life? 

Homework- Read to page 150!!