Young Writers Society

This paper is for a school assignment. I would most appreciate it if anyone could edit this. I'm the worst at papers, and this kind of paper was a totally new piece of writing I had to work at. Please, please, please review and help me!

Assignment:

You are to read the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, then choose a character from the novel and have him/her write a letter to me about his/her views on truth, freedom, or idealism. Make sure to reference the beginning, middle, and end of the book.

Essay:

Dear Honors Teacher,

I never really thought about what truth means to me until I met a strange young woman who had attached to me instantly. Clarisse McClellan was literally a thoughtful and “antisocial” person. Her conversations weren’t normal to anyone’s eyes. She was so curious as to how everything worked, curious as to how I worked! She told me of a time when there wasn’t as much violence, a time where simple houses had front porches, a time where firemen saved people!

I couldn’t believe this! Firemen saving people? That’s just absurd! I needed proof! Where could she find such proof, though? Her uncle told her, passed the information on to the next generation. She wasn’t allowed to show it to me in writing; it was against the law. Proof of history was in writing. This was when I got curious. What else could these writings tell me? What other truths lie in between the lines? What caused that woman to stay in the fire with her books and die with them? I just had to know.

Smuggling books into the apartment was the only way to read one, and even reading one was difficult. Mildred wasn’t very thrilled to see those twenty-some books hiding in the air conditioning system. Her first thought was to burn them, and I’m sure she wanted to even after I stopped her and explained my curiosity to her.

I became more and more interested as I read through the books. At one point, I had enough guts to walk up to Mildred’s friends and read a piece of poetry to their horrified faces. One of them broke down and cried, and even I was stunned at the way its words flowed, the imagery it portrayed. There was even more meaning in between the lines, and I was even more curious about the books. I kept reading, teaming up with ol’ Faber to hopefully bring books, fiction and non-fiction, back into this world. However, I couldn’t carry books with me wherever I go. There was only one piece of literature I could remember, and that was the Book of Ecclesiastes. That book stuck with me like peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. It wouldn’t go away without me trying to forget it. If I could memorize this Book, maybe I would be of some use to the world.

I met Granger and a few others who also memorized books and literature. I was shocked to hear there were so many people just like me, trying to bring history back into our lives. I was so shocked, in fact, I completely forgot the Book of Ecclesiastes. It slipped right through my fingers. I couldn’t reach it anymore, but with Granger’s help, I could retrieve it and use it to share with the world.

Before, when I was a fireman that burnt houses and the books inside, everything I learned was a lie. The truth of anything and everything lie with those books that smoldered up in the burning flames of the law—history, literature, stories—all in the process of being destroyed. Now, however, I realize what I was doing and use all my strength to bring our written proof back into the people’s lives. These books were proof that we, as human beings, aren’t perfect and I can see that, in the near future, this time of my life will be written on paper to share with others. Maybe, just maybe, the next generation, and the next generation, and the one after that will realize our mistake of burning such precious writings and avoid any thought of starting this war again.

Sincerely,

Guy Montag

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There you have it. Again, please edit! None of my talents lie in writing essays. XD