Read the following group discussion about Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451,
which is a novel about a society that burns books in order to keep dangerous
ideas from spreading.
EDGAR:
Peterson's article argues that Fahrenheit 451 isn't really a
dystopian novel because the main character, Montag, is
happy at least up until the point when he starts to
question his life. I'm not sure I agree.
RIKU:
I don't agree either.
MARIA:
Me neither. If it's a fake, superficial sort of happiness, the
hovel can still be dystopian. Peterson keeps using
examples like Nineteen Eighty-Four and A Clockwork
Orange, but I think those are too alike, and they make his
view too narrow.
RIKU:
Right. In Brave New World, a lot of the characters are
happy, but the book is still classified as dystopian.
VICTOR:
So how exactly should we define dystopia anyway?
RIKU:
Well, it's easy enough to look it up in a dictionary, but I've
seen a million different definitions from scholars. Each of
us should find two or three different definitions, and then
we'll compare them to see what they have in common.
Which student is most clearly determining new research goals?
A. Victor
B. Edgar
C. Riku
D. Maria
O O
Activ