Archetypes In Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a novel showing the “Hero’s Journey” archetype. This archetype shows the typical adventure of the hero, who goes out and achieves great deeds on behalf of the civilization. In this book, the protagonist and “hero”, Guy Montag, rebels against government laws set in the dystopian society. He goes on a journey to preserve literature from becoming obsolete and meaningless.

Another incident that stayed in Montag 's mind is the old women who set her self and her books on fire. However, Montag tried stopping her by telling her that the books were not worth her life. Before she burned herself, Montag took one of her books and kept it. At that time Montag did not think about what did the old lady burned herself with the books, he did not think about it might be the value and morals that books hold to teach is. The old lady knew the importance of these books and what do they have, so she preferred to burn herself with them, and not watch the firemen burn them, who do not even know the importance of books. But they do know that books are unreal and there is so importance of them, plus they are against the law!

Firstly, Montag faces the conflict of having to burn down a house with a woman in it, which led him to thinking that something important may be hidden within the books that could be different from what he has learning in this new version of society; Montag becomes more curious through this event and starts to wonder. Eventually, the protagonist is so deeply engrossed in his curiosity that “his hand closed like a mouth, crushed the book with wild devotion, with an insanity of mindlessness to his chest” (Bradbury 34). This quote illustrates

The freed prisoner, just like Montag, was not able to “compete with those perpetual prisoners in forming judgements about those shadows while his vision was still dim, before his eyes had recovered” (Plato 195). Mildred and her friends called Montag “nasty” (Bradbury 97), claiming he wished to hurt them. He was attacked by the society, as to how if they could, the prisoners of the cave would “kill the man who attempts to release and lead up,” as they had believed “he went up and came back with his eyes corrupted” (Plato 196). The mindless members of the public reject Montag's views, as the prisoners of the cave reject the freed man’s truths, in order to protect themselves from the perceived threat of sadness and suffering, fearful of the unknown. Happiness is considered to be equal to comfort and thoughtless pleasure. Beatty claims that mindless activities result in happiness, and that “any man who tries to slide rule, measure, and equate the universe” will only feel “bestial and lonely” (Bradbury

At the beginning of the novel Montag was convinced that “burning” was the solution. He even said “ it was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed ”. Throughout the novel he becomes more

Montag and John were both the bravest people in their society. In Fahrenheit 451 Montag’s bravery comes after he confronts the fact that he was harming his society

In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, critically acclaimed author Ray Bradbury asks the controversial question, what would a world where censorship of creative and differing Ideas is the norm resemble? In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury envisions a dystopian America in which not only books are censored, but personal thoughts and individuality are constrained in this world as well. Although there are many ways in which Bradbury presents and develops the themes in Fahrenheit 451, the most effective way Bradbury does this is through deft characterizations, he does this specifically through Clarisse Mcclellan and Mildred Montag

Montag reflects the prisoner’s journey from illusion to enlightenment with the support of other characters; as shown by the evolution of the protagonists in Fahrenheit 451 and “Allegory of the Cave.” Much like the prisoner’s commencement in the stage of illusion, where he is stuck staring at shadows on a wall, Montag starts his journey in a stage of illusion blanketed by the darkness of false happiness, that Mildred also resides in. The men continue to mirror each other as they both move forward to the stage of belief, where Clarisse thrusts Montag into a dimension beyond his own that he does not quite understand, and the prisoner is unshackled from the wall to face a domain that he is unable to make sense of. The reflection of their journeys

Take a look at any timeless movie like the Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Marvel superhero series. In each of these movies, a villain dressed in long black robes, with a corruptive smirk and mind uses their malicious powers to battle relentlessly with the force of the hero, the strongest and at times, the most kind-hearted character in the film. In these films, Luke fights Vader, Harry battles Voldemort, and Spider-Man combats against his villains. In the end, the hero is praised for bringing peace by restoring their community from the depths of darkness. Even in these classic movies, the archetype of light vs. dark is incorporated through it’s heroic and villainous characters. Similarly, Ray Bradbury incorporates this archetype into his

Unfortunately, even the most enlightened of people can fail. When the prisoner is forced back into the cave, it parallels to a sober person falling back into their addiction. In the allegory, the prisoner is forced from the upper world back into the dark cave leading to arising problems of despair and

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion tells the stories of Taylor and Equality beautifully, as an immense amount of conflicts and actions end up sharing a reaction; for example, setting the human race back to the dark ages. Along with human advancement eventually setting technology and life back thousands of years, these two stories share another element: love. It may create actions that someone would incline to do in a normal mindset. However, a gigantic misconception about all literature happens to be that the hero archetype has to always succeed, which goes against Anthem’s story. Human advancement creates a downfall in almost every instance in literature, falling hand in hand with love summoning ideas that would usually be nonexistent.

” Although the enlightened prisoner experiences darkness upon returning to the other prisoners in the cave, the darkness ultimately signifies the initial ignorance of his thoughts before he was able to discover Truth and knowledge through the upper world and in particular, the light of the sun (“The Allegory of the

In his novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury alludes to the Book of Ecclesiastes, a book from the Hebrew Bible that discusses the philosophy of life, to illustrate the development of Montag’s characterization, to explain the corruption of man, to expose how the people in Montag’s society are being

Similar to The Symposium, the cave allegory also has a reference to a Form. At the last stage of the prisoner's climb to the top of the cave, he sees the sun and observes the Form of Good. Since he was recently unaware of the Form of Good, he has reached a higher understanding, just like the boy from The Symposium.

In the story Allegory of the Cave the people whom are prisoners are trapped in a cave, they believe the cave in which they live in is all there is to their world and are perfectly fine with that. The dark cave and the chained prisoners are an example of the world we live in, an ignorant world with ignorant people. The prisoners believe that seeing shadows is the norm, but they have no self-awareness that these shadows actually exist “outside the cave”. Until one day a prisoner is released to see the outside world. It was difficult dragging the prisoner out of the cave but when he makes it out of the cave to see the outside world he eventually learns about the new world and realizes his former life was a complete lie. The philosopher in this