How does the government end the chase scene in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? Do you think this ending is inevitable?

At the end of Fahrenheit 451, Montag outwits the Mechanical Hound by doing the following: he runs to the river, strips down to nothing in the water and douses himself with whiskey, he changes into Faber's dirty clothes and shoes, and he lets the river carry him downstream. Because the chase is being broadcast by TV and radio, Montag can hear what is going on in the chase with his radio Seashell. As he floats down the river, though, he sees the Hound come to the edge of it. The lights from the helicopters almost find Montag, but he dives underwater and avoids capture.

When Montag reaches the hobo camp later on, they show him that they have been following the chase on their portable TV. They explain to Montag that since he fooled the Mechanical Hound, the authorities had to keep going with the chase so as not to upset their viewing public. Not only that, but the government can't afford to show the public that a fireman—one of their own—escaped from the Mechanical Hound. A man named Granger explains the rest of the chase as the authorities go after another victim and simply call him "Montag." Granger says the following:

"Watch... It'll be you; right up at the end of that street is our victim. See how our camera is coming in? Building the scene. Suspense. Long shot. Right now, some poor fellow is out for a walk... Don't think the police don't know the habits of queer ducks like that... the police have him charted for months, years... And today, it turns out, it's very usable indeed. It saves face" (148).

The Mechanical Hound is programmed to kill the guy out for a walk, but the TV announcer says the Hound found and killed Montag. The government ends the chase by killing someone else in Montag's name. Once they started broadcasting the chase, they needed to prove that they got their man any way that they could in order to demonstrate their power over criminals. If they would not have killed someone in Montag's name, they would have lost credibility with the populace, which may have led to further issues for them later. Governments don't appreciate looking like they are incompetent or fools, so they created cover-ups.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

Notes

Search This Blog