Fahrenheit 451

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Fahrenheit 451
Author Ray Bradbury
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Dystopian novel
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Released 1953
Media Type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 208 pp
ISBN ISBN 0-7432-4722-1 (Hardcover)
This article is about the novel. For the 1966 film adaptation, see Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film). For the coming film see Fahrenheit 451 (2007 film) For the rock band of the same name, see Fahrenheit 451 (band).

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian fiction novel by Ray Bradbury.

It is set in a world in which the reading of books is banned and critical thought is suppressed; the central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this case, means "book burner"). 451 degrees Fahrenheit (about 233°C) is stated as "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns ...". It was originally published as a shorter novella The Fireman in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. A film adaptation, by François Truffaut, was released in 1966, and another is anticipated. In addition to the movies, there have been at least two BBC Radio 4 dramatizations, both of which follow the book very closely.

The novel reflects several major concerns of the time of its writing: what Bradbury has called "the thought-destroying force" of censorship in the 1950s; the book-burnings in Nazi Germany starting in 1933; Stalin's suppression of authors and books in the Soviet Union; and the horrible consequences of an explosion of a nuclear weapon. "I meant all kinds of tyrannies anywhere in the world at any time, right, left, or middle," Bradbury has said.[1]

One particularly ironic circumstance is that, unbeknownst to Bradbury, his publisher released a censored edition in 1967 that eliminated the words "damn" and "hell" for distribution to schools. Later editions with all words restored include a "Coda" from the author describing this event and further thoughts on censorship and "well-meaning" revisionism.

Bradbury has written that the entirety of his novel was written in the basement of the UCLA library on a pay typewriter. His original intention in writing Fahrenheit 451 was to show his great love for books and libraries. He has often referred to Montag as an allusion to himself.

On the alienation of people by media, Bradbury said:

   
“
 In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.[2]
   
”

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an unspecified future time, possibly in the 21st or 22nd century, in a hedonistic and rabidly anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control and bans the possession of books. This dystopian society arose from protests against 'offensive' content in books with the argument that they contained nonsense and conflicting theories that caused intense emotions in people which could pose a fatal threat to the stability of human civilization. Furthermore, the increasingly frenetic pace of life and the ever-shortening attention span of the common man left no time for people to read anymore, decreasing the value of the written word. The Government, viewing this as an opportunity to establish totalitarian rule over the populace, encouraged this view. As a result, reading or even keeping books became a crime. "Firemen" were hired to burn discovered stashes of books, instead of putting out fires as they used to.

Going a step further, the Government revised history to make Benjamin Franklin the first "fireman," and make it appear that the job of a fireman had always been to start fires for books. The fire brigade's symbol is the salamander, an animal that is believed to thrive in fire. People are expected to become happy by watching TV all day long and taking drugs.

For the last 10 years the protagonist, Guy Montag, has worked with grim pleasure as a fireman, seemingly committed to his book-destroying job and its rationale. The stench of kerosene in his nostrils and the spark in his eyes do little, however, to mask the loneliness he feels coming home to his wife, Mildred, a woman who continually seeks self-stimulation in various forms, such as a miniature radio jammed in her ear at night or the three wall TVs in the parlor playing silly shows devoid of sense or meaning. Mildred seems to be content with her constricted, regulated life, but early on in the novel, Montag finds her dying from an overdose of sleeping pills, which implies that she is at least subconsciously aware of her lack of autonomy and pleasure.

Montag is able to continue to believe that his job is noble and follow the word of his superiors without question, until he meets Clarisse McClellan, a 17-year-old girl living in his neighborhood. Clarisse, considered abnormal because of her compassion and curiosity of the world around her, shows Guy that there are other things to life besides work and TV, including nature and simple events in everyday life. She also forces him to consider, for the first time, the ramifications of his work and way of living with her philosophical questions directed towards him, including on whether he is truly 'happy.' Her disappearance (implied to be a death) early in the story acts as a catalyst for Montag's transformation from a loyal servant of the state's ideology to a self-confident and independent human being.

Montag's descent into radicalism is further triggered by the defiant self-immolation of an elderly book hoarder who refuses to allow the firemen to burn her house down, and instead strikes the match herself. Deeply disturbed on the notion that the woman would consider books important enough to die for, Guy begins to read books in secret to find out what makes them special. As he does this, he wonders if he could ever do his job again, both because of the old woman's death and his new interest in books.

Beatty, the captain of his fire station, comes to Montag's house because of his suspicious absence from work. He explains the history of the fire brigade and why society has become so vehemently opposed to literature. It is implied that Beatty is well-read and already knows that Montag has at least one book. Beatty mentions in passing that once in his career every fireman wants to know what books say, and if a fireman takes a book with him, he has 24 hours to burn it, or the firemen will come and burn it for him.

Montag is unconvinced by Beatty's speech and looks up Faber, a retired English professor who he met a year earlier. On a paid visit, Faber advises Montag against violent action, but also acknowledges his own cowardice in allowing society to turn against the pursuit of knowledge. They decide to copy books and plant them in firemen's houses to sabotage the fire brigade. Faber gives Montag a two-way "seashell" (a small audio device resembling an earbud), with which he will be able to listen in on Montag's conversations and advise him on what to say. When Montag arrives at the fire house, he hands Beatty one of his many books. Beatty attempts to test him by quoting from several books, but they are interrupted by a call. When they arrive at the house to be burned, Montag recognizes it as his own.

Beatty forces Montag to prove his loyalty by burning down his own house. When he further antagonizes him and threatens to find Faber, Montag points the flame-thrower at him and burns him alive. As Montag escapes, he knocks out his fellow firemen, and then is attacked by the fire station's Mechanical Hound. The robot is armed with a syringe filled with a lethal dose of narcotics and tracks Montag by scent, before he destroys it with the flame-thrower. Another Mechanical Hound is brought in from another district to hunt down Montag, and the pursuit is aired live on TV.

After warning Faber to destroy all traces of his presence at his home and to escape, Montag flees for the countryside. The police eventually lose his trail and are forced to kill an insomniac in place of Montag so that the viewing public can enjoy a good show (this is a reference to a short story of Bradbury's "The Pedestrian", which features a similarly insomniac gentleman who walks for pleasure and is detained by the police when he gives this as his reason) despite the fact that the actual culprit got away.

Montag, having washed off his scent in a local river, floats downstream and meets a group of tramps — mostly older men — who, to Montag's astonishment, have been expecting him. Every one of them has committed entire books to memory to share with those who can listen and pass on the stories until books are allowed again. They themselves burned the books they read to prevent them from being discovered; the true books are safely stored in their minds. Montag learns from Granger, the leader of the group, about the mythical phoenix that is consumed by fire when it gets old and complacent, only to be born again through the flames, a symbol of the group's mission for society.

The city from which Montag fled is soon bombed, along with the other surrounding cities. It is implied that the bombs are of a nuclear variety. Montag and the tramps return to the city to help rebuild their society in the manner of the phoenix, so that people might once again learn from the books, and also from the past.

[edit] Themes in Fahrenheit 451

  • Individual Vs. Society
  • Importance of Literature
  • Value of entertainment over family, relationships and individually motivated lives
  • Propaganda
  • Censorship
  • Knowledge Vs. Ignorance
  • Life and Death
  • Animal Imagery
  • Technology
  • Paradoxes
  • Religion

[edit] Characters in Fahrenheit 451

  • Guy Montag is the protagonist and fireman (see above) whose metamorphosis is illustrated throughout the book and who presents the dystopia through the eyes of a loyal worker to it, a man in conflict about it, and one resolved to be free of it. Bradbury notes in his afterword that he noticed, after the book was published, that Montag is the name of a paper company. Guy Montag is also the opposite of "Girl Friday" (from a movie about newspaper reporters) - Montag being Monday in German.
  • Faber is the former English professor who represents those who know what is being done is wrong, but are too fearful to act. Bradbury notes in his coda that Faber is part of the name of a manufacturer of pencils, Faber-Castell. 'Faber' is also a Latin word meaning 'maker'.
  • Mildred Montag is Montag's wife, who tries to hide her own emptiness and fear of questioning her surroundings or herself with meaningless chatter and a constant barrage of television. She constantly tries to reach the glorified state of happiness, but is inwardly miserable. Mildred even makes an attempt at suicide early on in the book by overdosing on sleeping pills. She is used symbolically as the opposite of Clarisse McClellan. She is known as Linda Montag in the 1966 film.
  • Clarisse McClellan displays every trait Mildred does not. She is outgoing, naturally cheerful, unorthodox, and intuitive. She serves as the wake-up call for Guy Montag, by posing the question “why?” to him. She is unpopular among peers, and disliked by teachers for (as she puts it) asking why instead of how, and focusing on nature rather than technology. Montag always regards her as odd until she goes missing; the book gives no definitive explanation. But it is said that Captain Beatty and Mildred know that Clarisse has been killed by a car.
  • Captain Beatty is Montag's boss and the fire chief. Once an avid reader himself, he is disgusted with the idea of books and detests how they all contradict and refute each other. In a scene removed by Bradbury, he invited Guy to his house where he shows him walls of books which he leaves to molder on their shelves. He tries to entice Guy back into the book-burning business, but is burnt alive by Montag when he underestimates Montag's resolve. Guy later realizes that Beatty might have wanted to die and provoked Guy until he did it. He is the symbolic opposite of Granger.
  • Granger is the leader of a group of wandering intellectual exiles, who memorize books so they will be saved. Where Beatty destroys, he creates; where Beatty uses fire for the purpose of burning, he uses it for the purpose of warming. His acceptance of Montag is considered the final step in Montag's metamorphosis, from embracing Beatty's ultimate value (happiness and complacency), to embracing his value (love of knowledge).
  • Mechanical Hound The mechanical hound exists in the original book but not in the film. It is an emotionless, mechanical killing machine that can be programmed to seek out and destroy free thinkers, hunting them down by scent; the hound is blind to anything but the destruction for which it is programmed. Bradbury notes in his afterword that the hound is "my robot clone of A. Conan Doyle's great Baskerville beast," referring to the famous Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles.
  • Mildred's friends (Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps) Mildred's friends represent the average citizens in the numbed society that is described throughout the novel. They are examples of the people in this society who are not happy, but do not think they are unhappy. When they are introduced to literature, which symbolizes the pain and joy that has been censored from them, Mrs. Phelps is overwhelmed by the rush of emotion that she has not felt before.
Spoilers end here.

[edit] Allusions and references in other works

The title of Bradbury's book has become a well-known byword amongst those who oppose censorship, in much the way George Orwell's 1984 has (although not to the same extent). As such, it has been alluded to many times, including in the ACLU's 1997 white paper Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? and Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Bradbury objected to the latter's allusion of his work, referring to director Michael Moore as a "screwed asshole".[3]

Artist Micah Wright used the theme "Hand all books to your local fireman for safe disposal" overlaid on a 1940s fireman propaganda poster.

Hungarian poet György Faludy includes the lines in the opening stanza of his 1983 poem "Learn by Heart This Poem of Mine": "Learn by heart this poem of mine, / Books only last a little time, / And this one will be borrowed, scarred, [...] / Or slowly brown and self-combust, / When climbing Fahrenheit has got / To 451, for that's how hot / it will be when your town burns down. / Learn by heart this poem of mine."[4]

The theme and plot of the movie Equilibrium, starring Christian Bale and Sean Bean, draws heavily from Fahrenheit 451 (as well as 1984 and Brave New World).

An instructional pornography movie titled Fahrenheit 69: The Desired Temperature for Oral Sex, was released in 1989.

Guy Montag, a flamethrower-wielding character in Starcraft, is named after Montag.

Dozens of other references to the novel occur in television, music, and video games.

[edit] Printings

  • First Printing - prebound, October 1953
  • Second Printing - paperback, April 1960
  • Third Printing - paperback, December 1962, Ballantine Books

[edit] Editions

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Bradbury, Ray (2004). Conversations with Ray Bradbury. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 19. ISBN 1-57806-641-7.
  2. ^ Quoted by Kingsley Amis in New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (1960).
  3. ^ SFGate.com (2004), “Author seeks apology from Michael Moore”, retrieved 2006-10-03, and Secular Blasphemy (2004) “Ray Bradbury: ‘Michael Moore is an asshole’”, retrieved 2006-10-03.
  4. ^ Gyorgy (George) Faludy. John Robert Colombo, ed. Learn by Heart This Poem of Mine: Sixty Poems and One Speech, Hounslow Press, 1983, ISBN 0-88882-060-7. Online version hosted by opendemocracy.net

[edit] Further reading

  • Bustard, Ned. Fahrenheit 451 Comprehension Guide. Veritas Press, 2004.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../f/a/h/Fahrenheit_451.html"