Test (Nov 29, 2006)

Extrapolation

Extras:

• The Novel: A Discussion With Author Ray Bradbury  

• Making of Fahrenheit 451  

• The Music of Fahrenheit 451  

Extrapolation

In geometry this term means using a set of points to draw a curve that extends beyond the last known location. The points the science fiction writer starts from are observations of past and current conditions. The extrapolated curve is a hypothetical future trend that follows logically from them. Writers extrapolate from both scientific knowledge and social patterns. For example, a space ship found in a sf story would be an extrapolation from space shuttles of today; or a ray gun might be extrapolated from a pistol and a laser of some type. Extrapolations can also be social; for example, a future society in which the government is fighting large armies of survivalists and skinheads would be an extrapolation from the small cults of survivalists and skinheads of today. Basically, when a sf writer extrapolates he takes some idea or object or condition in his world and projects it into the future and speculates on how it might change. 

Test (Extract from Chapter 1: It was a Pleasure to Burn)

* Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among college students and the third-leading cause of death among youth overall (ages 15-24).

* Every hour and forty-five minutes another young person commits suicide

* Teen/youth suicide rates have tripled since 1970.

Historical and Thematic Context of Fahrenheit 451: Censorship

Fahrenheit 451 is a story built around book-burning, but that action is representative of all sorts of censorship. As the author states in a coda to the novel, "The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches." (Fahrenheit 451, p. 176). After World War II, the threat of communism led to a panic in the United States as rumors surfaced about communist spies active in Canada. A U.S. House of Representatives member from California, Richard Nixon, had won election in 1946 by suggesting communist leanings of his opponent. In Washington he gained prominence on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative body set up to look into possible communist elements in the government. Prodded by Congress, President Harry Truman directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Civil Service Commission to investigate the loyalty of all federal employees. Some 3 million workers came under the inspection of government agencies--yet just 300 were dismissed for disloyal ideas while 2,900 resigned their positions in protest. The government desire to weed out any "foreign" ideas grew as Whittaker Chambers, an editor of Time magazine and a confessed Soviet spy, accused Alger Hiss, a former State Department official, of providing classified documents for transmittal to the Soviets during this decade. Hiss denied the charges but in 1950 was convicted of lying under oath, for which a federal court sentenced him to five years in prison. Back in Congress, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy carried on and escalated the virtual witch hunts that had begun with Nixon and the HUAC. McCarthy became especially focused on finding communists in the State Department and then the U.S. Army.

This translates into: → →→ → → →

Test - continued:

Go on, anyway, shove the bore down, slush up the emptiness, if such a thing could be brought out in the throb of the suction snake. The operator stood smoking a cigarette. The other machine was working too.

The other machine was operated by an equally impersonal fellow in non-stainable reddish-brown overalls. This machine pumped all of the blood from the body and replaced it with fresh blood and serum.

"Got to clean 'em out both ways," said the operator, standing over the silent woman. "No use getting the stomach if you don't clean the blood. Leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits the brain like a mallet, bang, a couple of thousand times and the brain just gives up, just quits."

"Stop it!" said Montag.

"I was just sayin'," said the operator.

"Are you done?" said Montag.

They shut the machines up tight. "We're done." His anger did not even touch them. They stood with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them blink or squint. "That's fifty bucks."

"First, why don't you tell me if she'll be all right?"

"Sure, she'll be O.K. We got all the mean stuff right in our suitcase here, it can't get at her now. As I said, you take out the old and put in the new and you're O.K."

"Neither of you is an M.D. Why didn't they send an M.D. from Emergency?"

Annotations: slush (up) – here: suck (up) [onomatopoeic word]; M.D. – medical doctor (as opposed to the paramedics)

Assignments:  

1. Summarize the main action of the extract relating it to the larger context of Fahrenheit 451. [Content/Context]
2. What makes the world Montag lives in an unpleasant one? Work on the stylistic means and genre features (typical of anti-utopian novels) used in the extract. Among other things, focus on anthropomorphic features as well as the interaction between Montag and the paramedics . [Analysis]

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