Fahrenheit 451 A Charred Existence Term paper
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Fahrenheit 451 A Charred Existence
Imagine living in a world where you are not in control of your own thoughts. Imagine living in a world in which all the great thinkers of the past have been blurred from existence. Imagine living in a world where life no longer involves beauty, but instead a controlled system that the government is capable of manipulating. In Ray Bradbury s Fahrenheit 451, such a world is brought to the awareness of the reader through a description of the impacts of censorship and forced conformity on people living in a futuristic society. In this society, all works of literature have become a symbol of unnecessary controversy and are outlawed. Individuality and thought is outlawed. The human mind is outlawed. All that is left is a senseless society, unaware of their path to self-destruction, knowing only what the government wants them to know. By telling a tale of a world parallel to our own, Bradbury warns us of a future we are on a path to a future of mind manipulation, misused technology, ignorance, and hatred. He challenges the reader to remain open-minded by promoting individualism, the appreciation of literature, the defiance of censorship and conformity, and most importantly, change.
Bradbury s inspiration to convey the themes involved in the novel resulted mainly from the social situation of the time. First of all, the novel was written shortly after World War II and increasing numbers of authors began writing about serious topics. Also, the invention of the atom bomb had aroused the Cold War and the use of technology as a form of destruction (Touponce 124). Seeing technology as a potential threat to the well-being of mankind, Bradbury uses Fahrenheit 451 to state his distrust for it in the novel, which explains why the devices are depicted as chilling, impersonal gadgets of mechanized anti-culture, (Mogen 141). Also, as the television was becoming the main form of communication in the 50 s, Bradbury believed that it was reducing society to very mediocre tastes (Touponce 125). As a defense against the degradation of literature (as well as peoples minds), Bradbury intended to teach us of the importance of books by showing us the misery involved in a world that lacks them. Another social consequence leading to the writing of Fahrenheit 451 was that, at the time, the country was going through what was called the era of McCarthyism. During this time, many Americans were accused of attempting to undermine the United States government (Touponce 124). It was a time of book-burning and close panic, which left Bradbury in disbelief that [we] would go all out and destroy ourselves in this fashion (Moore 103). The writing of this novel was also an opportunity for Bradbury to speak out against the censorship of written literature that was taking place by showing the consequences of it. Bradbury believed that the censorship of books destroyed important ideas, knowledge, and opinions and restricted the world from learning about the problems of their culture. His writing came to show that without such knowledge, society could become very passive, which would make it vulnerable to the control and mind manipulating techniques of the government. Ironically enough, this book itself was subject to censorship on its initial release (Touponce 125). These political, social, and military tensions of the 50 s lent to Bradbury s own tensions, calling him forth to alert the people of their own self-destructive behaviors.
The setting in which the story takes place has a significant effect on the theme expressed in the novel. The most notable aspect of the setting is the time at which it is set. The time that Bradbury is trying to illustrate is never simply stated, but rather implied and described through the lives of the characters and the technology available to them. The existence of a four-walled television (Bradbury 20) and high-speed jet-propelled beetle cars (Bradbury 9) inform us that this story takes place sometime in the distant future, keeping in mind this novel was written in the 1950 s. The time that the story takes place in is very closely associated with the place of its occurrence. Yet it is not so much a matter of a specific location, but rather the world that it takes place in a world brought about by the ignorance of the people that reside in it. In appearance, this world seems almost identical to ours, except the only difference occurs in the minds of the people of this world. This close resemblance of these two worlds provides a way for Bradbury to implicate that our future can be like that of the story s society if we are not careful. As critic Tom Bradford put it, elements of the real world must be among the constituent ingredients (69). He tempts the reader look beyond the science fiction aspects of the novel and realize that this story is a reflection of our future, as it may become.
Perhaps the most effective of Bradbury s methods in the portrayal of his theme is symbolism. Throughout the story, almost every object and situation seems to serve a purpose in the representation of Bradbury s dystopian society and its change from it (Amis 68). The most symbolic of such objects is fire. Bradbury s use of fire throughout the story is, like Montag s character, very dynamic. All through the story, the meaning, emotional reaction to, and use of fire is changed, until its final use in the rebirth of society. Using fire, Bradbury frames the dominant themes of degradation, metamorphosis, and rebirth (Wildmann 1). Most of this change is shown through the character of Montag, who starts as a fireman. But unlike today s firemen, Montag burns books and sees fire as the only solution to problems until he is later enlightened and escapes the norms of society. At the start of the novel, fire seems to be directly associated with the image of destruction. The description of pages being consumed and blackened by flames in the opening of the book serves to place a predisposed image of fire as evil and destructive. The sole use of fire to annihilate the knowledge and opinions associated with books shows that its only intent is to destroy. It destroys books, it destroys homes, it destroys lives, it destroys Captain Beatty, it destroys Montag s house, and in the end, it destroys the city from which Montag barely escapes. Fire s representation in Bradbury s dystopian society is censorship. Since, in Fahrenheit 451, books are burned to keep any controversial information from reaching the minds of the passive citizens, it becomes evident that fire is ultimately the censoring force. The link that Bradbury makes between the initial representation and description of fire shows that his message is that censorship is destructive. But fire s purpose seems to take a turning point in the novel after Montag s awakening realization about the need to express his thoughts among a society of conformists. Fire is then seen as a symbol of rebirth and purification. Even Beatty himself, captain of the firemen, believes that, fire is bright, and fire is clean (Bradbury 54), showing the uniquely cleansing property of flames. Fire allows something to be wiped-out completely and changed, allowing a fresh new start the start of a new society. When Montag sets his own house ablaze, he undergoes an uncommon emotional experience, in which he views the fire as a new starting point, a change in his life. Even the opening of the book claims, It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed (Bradbury 3). Also, Bradbury s frequent reference to the Phoenix, as on Beatty s helmet and car, as well as its reference by Granger at the end of the book, serves as a metaphor to this rebirth. The Phoenix was a mythical bird of ancient Egypt that, after its five hundred-year existence, consumes itself in flames and is reborn from its own ashes (Sisario 105). The resurrection of the Phoenix signifies the cyclical nature of human life and civilization. Beatty is burned to death, and his death by fire symbolically illustrates the rebirth that is associated with his Phoenix sign. At the end of the book, one of the book-saving outlaws, Granger, refers to the Phoenix and claims that:
[The Phoenix] must have been the first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of his ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we re doing the same thing, over and over, but we ve got one damn thing that the Phoenix never had. We know all the damn silly things we ve done for a thousand years and someday we ll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember every generation (Bradbury 163).
This significant quote serves to inform us that the only way to avoid the repetition of history is to learn about the past and the problems of the past. Through Granger, Bradbury expresses the hope that mankind might use his intellect and knowledge of his own intellectual and physical destruction and keep from going through the endless cycles of disintegration and rebirth (Sisario 105). At the end of the book, the final positive use of fire is finally seen. A scene of men sitting around a campfire, a fire that provides warmth and security, and reading books is described, altering the earlier perception of fire as destructive. This clearly shows Bradbury s intent to depict the dual sides of fire. Even the title of the first part of the book is: The Hearth and the Salamander. The hearth represents the warmth and comfort provided by fire. In Greek mythology, the salamander was a creature that could endure flames without burning (Wildmann 2). Regarding the fact that the symbol on the shoulders of the firemen was that of a salamander, this creature was intended to represent the destruction of fire and man s self-destructive actions. Even Faber, and ex-English professor who, despite his cowardice, also values books, states that, The salamander has devoured its own tail (Bradbury 90). This statement implies that through their destructive behaviors, the firemen have destroyed themselves. This shows the reader that if we continue to censor works of literature and suppress the thoughts of our great authors, we will end up doing more damage to ourselves than avoiding it.
Another use of symbolism occurs with the portrayal of water as a cleansing, purifying object. Bradbury creates this image by illustrating the use of water in cleansing Montag s soul as he makes a fresh start. The first instance where water is used to show the renewal of Montag s soul is when he first meets Clarisse McClellan,...
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