Ray Bradbury's Farheit 451

Mankind has been utilizing fire for millennia; it has been used to make food safe, to provide warmth, to illuminate the dark and unknown, and to protect from savage beasts. It is also practical for torturing, killing, intimidating, and destroying. It only takes one glance for someone to see how fire -- as it dances, spearing the sky for but a moment before it is gone, only to be replaced by another flame -- is far too chaotic to be controlled. In the world of Fahrenheit 451, it seems, superficially, that man has conquered fire at last; the home, man’s refuge from everything undesirable in the world, is fireproof. Why, then, are things still burning in this gilded utopia? In this futuristic society where there is no such thing as an uncontrolled fire, fire has been reduced to a mere tool to be wielded by mankind. As such, fire, in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, is a reflection of the true nature of each character in the novel. In the hands of the society and especially the fireman, fire is a tool wielded for fractious and destructive intent. For Clarisse, who is compared to a candle, fire is friendly and inspiring of thought. And for Montag and the other literates hiding outside of the city, fire is a warm gathering place that fosters kinship and the proper ideals to feed a revolution.

Guy montag, a future fireman who sets fires, and enjoys it. This society cant read books, it's illegal, all books are burned seemingly to everyone’s enjoyment, including guy. Largely defining his character as finding a fire-fueled smile that never leaves his face. Clarisse, a girl living next to guy, changes his mind with simple questions he’s never heard, “are you in love?’’ No one asks him a personal question, he doesn't know the answer. With books being burned for their knowledge, authenticity is scarce and people are feed what they “need” to hear, substance-less information no one cares to change or question because they don't know how, just hop in the truck and hit 90 mph for an hour if something bothers

Guy Montag, on the other hand, is a fireman who starts fires, rather than stops them, in order to burn books, which are banned. Anyone caught with books are reported and their house and sometimes the people themselves are burned to the ground. People in his society don’t read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Guy is struggling with the meaninglessness of his life. His wife doesn’t seem to care and when he meets a seventeen year old girl named, Clarisse McClellan it opens up his eyes to the emptiness in his life. After this Montag becomes overwhelmed because of the stash of books in his house that he stole while on the job. Beatty, the fire chief, says that it’s normal for every fireman to go through a stage of wondering what books have to offer. Beatty gives Montag the night to see if the books have anything valuable in them, and to return them in the morning to be burned.

My appreciation of a literary work was enhanced by understanding symbol when I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The science fiction novel is about Guy Montag, a man who is a firefighter. In this time, the job of a firefighter is to burn and destroy all books because reading or having books is illegal. He does his job, day by day, burning books without giving it a thought. As the novel continues, Montag realizes that books are not bad and tries to save them. He remembers a time when fire was not a destructive force; fire was also a source of warmth and comfort. In this novel, fire represents two opposing forces, depending on how it is used. The firemen use it to destroy, but Montag learns that it gives a source of a warm and comforting affect when used correctly.

In this society that is gradually becoming increasingly dependent on technology, will literature slowly disappear from the minds of the population? This is the question that Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, attempts to answer. In this book, he describes a hypothetical world in which the population not only avoids reading, but has made owning books an unthinkable crime, with all books discovered burned, along with the houses of those who hoarded them. In this dystopian future created by Bradbury, the beauty that is literature has been replaced in society by television programs and radio stations. This reveals Bradbury’s obvious fear that modern technology would completely replace books- a legitimate concern to have. In 2015, the value of books differ between groups of people. The disadvantage of this is that books provide the readers opportunity to allow their imaginations to run wild, something that television and radio never could. Fahrenheit 451 addresses the problem and fear of overwhelming technology through its fictional world, which shows what would happen should people render literature completely useless through the use of television and radios.

My name is Guy Montag, and I am a firefighter, who start fires rather than put them out. In my time books were banned, and if found were burned. I found the job amusing, I mean, I get paid to burn books. One day I met Clarisse, who was my neighbor and she opened my eyes to the world. I then began understanding the need for books. The people in my society were ignorant, due to the restrictions the government placed on books. I still remember the night, the fire station got a call about an old lady hiding books in her home, we went there and she told us “You can’t have my books", she then took out a match and lit everything on fire, including herself. I began thinking about how valuable books are, I mean the old lady sacrificed herself for pieces

In Fahrenheit 451 they band books you cant even read a book if you read a book you have to go to jail or burn yourself to death. If you dont burn yourself that perosn must to go jail. They burn a lot of books cause it was againt the law. In the book Montag read dozens of books he would hide them. He was already braking the law with taking a book and raeding. How he started reading a book was that “ Montag was buring books and he saw a book. He read the first few lines of the first page. He was already braking the law he even took the book home he put the book in his firmen coat”( Brabury 35). In our world we can read as many books as we want. Books help with alot. Books help us learn new words, write etc. Books help us through so many things

Ray Bradbury once said, “My stories are warnings; they're not predictions. If they were predictions, I wouldn't do them. Because then I'd be part of the doom-ridden psychology. But every time I name a problem, I try to give a solution.” Ray Bradbury predicted everything from digital surveillance to our short attention span. Even more surprising, is how our world appears to slowly turn into the world of Fahrenheit 451. In the book, the US has taken a turn for the worse. Children are killing each other, robots are replacing people in the workplace, and most importantly, books are banned. It is intriguing (and even scary) how much this book and our society have in common and if we don’t want be like this, we need to be like Ray Bradbury and find

Imagine a society where owning books is illegal, and the penalty for their possession—to watch them combust into ashes. Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, illustrates just such a society. Bradbury wrote his science fiction in 1951 depicting a society of modern age with technology abundant in this day and age—even though such technology was unheard of in his day. Electronics such as headphones, wall-sized television sets, and automatic doors were all a significant part of Bradbury’s description of humanity. Human life styles were also predicted; the book described incredibly fast transportation, people spending countless hours watching television and listening to music, and the minimal interaction people had with one another. Comparing

Someone famous once stated, “The eyes are useless when the mind is blind”. In our present society, to find a place in which our minds are not being constantly suffocated with what the world wants us to perceive is becoming a strenuous task. From the grocery store to the rooms of our very own homes nothing seems to be of our own conscience anymore. Yet we are able to turn a blind eye to this fact. Why’s that? Just take a few seconds to think to yourself, “ How long [has] it [been]since you were really bothered? [Bothered ]about something important, about something real?”(pg)

How would be the life of individuals’ under a dominant king’s kingdom? Answer of this question is the life of protagonist Guy Montage from Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 demonstrates how excessive use of technology affects a person’s relationship. Montage is the protagonist of the novel who is a fireman. Montage lives in a world where his job is to burn books, and initiate fire. The government is trying to outlaw the use of books in the city. Bradbury portrays this new world through the character of Montage. Bradbury describes Montage’s world where government is prohibiting use of books for the sake of their happiness. Bradbury portrays the issues concerning overuse of technology and its implications on citizens’ and their daily life. The restricted lifestyle, fake entertainment, and abuse of technologies have vital effects on individuals, and their relationships with their family members.

Picture a world where one must meet the expectations of being normal, where diversity is not accepted, or even worse, a detached society where emotions no longer exist. By reading the first few pages of Fahrenheit 451, readers immediately get the feeling of a dystopian society. Firemen creating fires, instead of extinguishing them, and technology that has taken their society to a whole new level of entertainment. These are exaggerated ideas right off the bat, yet Ray Bradbury carries the readers through the story in order to show them his own outlook on the future- in fact, all dystopian works share an aspect of how the world could turn out to be. There are many ways of creating a true dystopian story, although social commentary is by far the most impactful. This is a stylistic element that creators use to express their opinions about society. Fictional novels and films such as Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, The Young Elites by Marie Lu, and Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium, each provide a different message to the audience, including the dangers of advanced technology, what could happen if people lived in a non-diverse society, and how emotions are significant in life. The different style techniques that the writers and directors use allow the people to become more aware about the dangers of things and realize that although they may seem like far fetched ideas, they have the potential to become a reality.

Fahrenheit 451 depicts a time in the future of America where people are unaware of the state of the world and are content with not knowing. These people have no deep thoughts about things and don’t question what they’re told. Books are banned and burned when found and anything that is printed is so short as to take up to a minute or two to read. TV shows consist of soap operas with no story-line or plot. Technology encourages isolation between people and plays a large part of people’s dull lives. Bradbury had envisioned a future of this caliber and somehow he managed to get many of these aspects correct or pretty close to correct.

While reading Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, the events that took place within the story caused others to unfold within a ‘domino like effect ‘, which went from a beginning to an end within the story. It is important to note not just how different situations within “Fahrenheit 451” occurred, but also what happened before the situation occurred and as well as to what happened following the situation. Coinciding with a dystopian setting, “Fahrenheit 451” goes through dynamic changes within the story that steadily builds the story more as the reader continues to read that consistently shows how the society the characters lived in reflected upon how certain situations occurred from within “Fahrenheit 451”. “Fahrenheit 451” follows the steps of narrative structure through the characters within the story, society functions, and irrational actions.

Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in in Waukegan, Illinois. He died on June 5th, 2012. Ray Bradbury 's work has been included in four Best American Short Story collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, and many others.