Fahrenheit 451

From Free net encyclopedia

This article is about the novel. For the 1966 film adaptation, see Fahrenheit 451 (film). For the rock band of the same name, see Fahrenheit 451 (band).

Image:Fahrenheit451.jpg Fahrenheit 451 (1953) is a dystopian fiction novel by Ray Bradbury. It is set in a world where books are 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. It was made in to a movie in 1966 by François Truffaut. In addition to the movies, there have been at least two BBC Radio 4 dramatisations, both of which follow the book very closely.

The novel reflects several major concerns of the time of its writing: the censorship and suppression of thoughts and ideas exercised in the United States in the 1950s as the result of McCarthyism; the burnings of books in Nazi Germany starting in 1933; and the horrible consequences of an explosion of a nuclear weapon.

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.

1 Plot
2 Character Analysis
3 Influence on popular culture
4 Accuracy as a vision of the future
5 ISBNs
6 See also
7 External links

[edit]

Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story takes place sometime in the not-too-distant future, in an America whose society's goal in life is hedonistic pleasure and abandonment of self-control. By this point in time, books have been made obsolete by the increasingly frenetic pace of life and the ever-shortening attention span of the common man nobody has "time" to read anymore. In the government's, and consequently the society's opinion, books contain problems and conflicting theories, books are seen as a source of unhappiness, causing people to be anxious, sad or angry, a threat to one's neighbor with attained knowledge. That is what the government wants to avoid, because those feelings could threaten the country's stability. The ideas in books are considered heresy and firemen are employed to burn and destroy them whenever discovered, in favor of fun and happiness. According to the authorities, Benjamin Franklin was the first fireman and people should achieve happiness by watching TV all day long or by using drugs. The fire brigade's symbol is the salamander, an animal that was thought to thrive in fire.

For ten years the protagonist, Guy Montag, works with grim pleasure as a fireman, seemingly committed to the concept that books have nothing to say. 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, at all times, seeks self-stimulation in various forms such as a miniature radio jammed in her ear at night, or the three wall TVs in the parlour, with their silly shows, lacking any sense or meaning. With the spreading of TVs, newspapers disappeared and nobody wanted them back and nobody missed them because it was so easy: one did not have to think while sitting in front of the screen.

At first, Guy is proud of his work. He thinks it is a fine job and kerosene is nothing but perfume to him, as he says. Upon meeting Clarisse McClellan, a 17-year-old girl living in Montag's neighbourhood, who is considered abnormal because of her compassion and her simple interest in the world around her, his way of thinking changes. Unlike Guy, she pays attention to nature, which average people don't care about anymore. She makes him reflect on life and his work. She poses essential questions to him, asking him if he is happy, and why things are the way they are. This results in Guy beginning to think about his situation. Clarisse dies early in the story and acts only as a catalyst to Guy's transformation. Guy develops from a loyal servant of the state's ideology to a self-confident human being with his own free will.

Guy's wife Mildred loses her free will, self-confidence, and the desire to question societal norms, preferring to sit in her parlour and watch TV on three TV walls set up around her. She seems to be happy staring at the screens but actually attempts to commit suicide, revealing her emptiness. She takes too many pills which actually should make her happy. As consequence of her watching TV in such an excessive way she has lost her sense of reality: She is convinced that in case of an imminent war every man will return back home in a few days. Moreover she's unable to make complete and logical sentences.

Another event that is important for Guy's development happens when he and his fire brigade are sent to a house whose owner, an old lady, is suspected of owning books. However the lady strikes a match and kills herself along with the books rather than carry on living without them. This causes Guy to contemplate the meaning of books, as the woman found them important enough to die for.

After this cruel event, unnoticed by the other firemen except perhaps Beatty (who would say not a thing, as if he could see right through him), Guy takes a Bible with him, reading it in secret. He stays away from work and pretends that he is ill. He wonders if he could ever do his job again, both because of the old woman's death, and because of his new interest in books. In preceding actions of the fire brigade, he has already stolen books without knowing why, but unlike now, he had never read them.

With him staying away from work, Beatty, the Captain of his fire station, visits Guy. He tells him about the history of the fire brigade, and the senselessness of books. In this speech, the reader of the book recognizes that Beatty knows that Guy has at least one book. It is implied that he has read a lot, and "knows his enemy", but at the same time despises books and their readers. In his speech he 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 bring it to the fire house and burn it there.

Now Guy is confused. He cannot find it in his heart to burn such valuable things. On top of it all, his wife Mildred is annoyed that he is keeping some books, and is scared of what could happen if the fire brigade knew about them.

He no longer wants to burn books, he wants to know if they have something worth hearing. He looks up Faber, a retired English professor that he met a year ago. Although Faber knew that Guy was a fireman, and was scared, he recited poems to Guy at that time. As he left, Faber gave his address to Guy for his file in case he decided to be angry with him. Montag visits Faber and he tells him of his problems. He does not want to turn in the Bible, but he also cannot find a substitute. Furthermore, Montag does not know if Beatty knows which book he has stolen, and if he would recognize that Montag has got a whole library at home if he doesn't bring the Bible. He doesn't want Beatty to find out Guy's real attitude towards books.

Faber gives Guy a bug with which Faber is able to listen to Beatty and Guy talk and advise Guy on what to say. They decide to copy books and plant them in other firemen's houses, to sabotage the fire brigade. When Guy arrives at the fire house, he hands Beatty the book. Then Beatty wants to test Guy. He quotes from books and asks for Guy's opinion about them. In the moment he wants to answer the station bell rings and they have to leave. They get into their vehicle, and when they arrive Guy recognizes that it is his house.

Mildred has denounced him. When the firemen arrive she is leaving the house for good. Beatty forces Guy to burn the books he has. But he not only burns the books but also the entire house. He wants to destroy all that reminds him of his previous life. When he comes out of the house, he has changed. Beatty antagonizes him, and threatens to find Faber, Montag points the flamethrower at him and burns him alive. As Montag escapes, he knocks out his fellow firemen, but he then flees for his life, pursued by a relentless Mechanical Hound.

After warning Faber to destroy all traces of his presence at Faber's house as well as to escape as well, he embarks on a harrowing journey from the city. Losing the trace of Montag at the river, the police are forced to replace Montag with an insomniac, killing this man, who looks like 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 reason).

Montag eventually escapes the pursuit by jumping in the river and floating downstream. Once he comes ashore again, he 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 would listen, until books will be allowed again. They themselves burned the books they read to prevent them from being discovered. Amongst them is Granger, the leader of the group. Guy arrives at the camp and warms himself over a campfire, where he realizes that fire is capable of giving warmth as well as destruction. Afterward, the city which Guy has just escaped from, and other cities as well, are soon struck with the atomic bomb and destroyed, along with their way of life, so that people might once again learn from the books, and learn from the past. He has a talk with Granger about the fact that it is necessary for the mythical phoenix to be consumed by fire when it gets old and complacent, for it to be born again. This is relayed to Montag as an allegory of society.

The metamorphosis of society, the Phoenix, and Montag are intertwined. Following the destruction, Guy and his newly made friends travel back to the ruins of the city to embark on the reconstruction of society.

[edit]

Character Analysis

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 Montag is the name of a paper mill.
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).
Mildred Montag is Montag's wife, who tries to hide her own emptiness and fear of questioning her surroundings or herself, with drugs, meaningless chatter, and a constant barrage of television. She constantly tries to reach the glorified state of happiness, but is inwardly miserable. 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, 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 parents 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.
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 removed scene by Bradbury, he invited Guy to his house where he shows him walls of books which he leaves to moulder 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. 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 Granger's ultimate value (happiness and complacency), to embracing his value (love of knowledge).

[edit]

Influence on popular culture

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 in dozens of later contexts, amongst them the ACLU's 1997 whitepaper Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? and Michael Moore's 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11 (Bradbury objected to its allusion of his work [1]).

The movie Equilibrium, starring Christian Bale and Sean Bean, draws heavily from Fahrenheit 451, as well as 1984 and Brave New World. The most notable is the overall plot; Both Montag and Equilibrium's main character, John Preston, are enforcers of the law in the near future where literature is a crime, start to experience illegal emotions after they come into contact with females who have broken the law. They eventually both are hunted for treason.

The computer game StarCraft features a flamethrower-wielding character named "Guy Montag".

In 1984 a Fahrenheit 451 video game was made for the C64 and the Apple II computers.

In the show The Famous Jett Jackson, the episode "Saving Mr. Dupree" centered around the banning of the book.

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

The Looking Glass Studios computer game System Shock uses 451 as the first keypad code. The Irrational Games-developed sequel, System Shock 2 uses 451 as part of a code twice, both times with numbers added to make the codes 5 digits. The Ion Storm Dallas computer game Deus Ex uses 0451 as an early keycode, as "an allusion to System Shock's allusion to Fahrenheit 451". Looking Glass Studios also used 451 for the security keypad to their main offices [2].

The Origin Systems computer game Crusader: No Regret uses 451 as a keypad code for a safe. A nearby terminal gives a clue: "the temperature at which paper burns".

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

In the movie Velvet Goldmine, which features original music, a reference to Fahrenheit 451 was in the lyrics of the Ballad of Maxwell Demon, which said "the boys from quadrant 44 with their vicious metal hounds don't come round here no more".

[edit]

Accuracy as a vision of the future

Several aspects of the fictional future depicted in the novel have become reality in the late 20th and early 21st century:

There are now live television broadcasts of police pursuits of fugitives, aided by helicopter-mounted cameras and supplemented by voice-over commentary by announcers.
"Seashell radios" closely resemble portable radios and earbuds, such as those found in portable audio players.
Some people believe that television content has become more empty (for instance, reality television; see also the above comment on broadcast police chases in view of shows like Cops).
Books considered to be objectionable, such as those from the Harry Potter series and other books related to witchcraft, have been burned in the United States; of course, books have been burned long before Fahrenheit 451.
Anti-depressant pills have become much more common and commercialized (see also Brave New World).
Abortion and caesarian section are widely used for non-medical or non-lifesaving reasons.
There is a greater reliance on anonymous tips by law enforcement agencies (portrayed in the movie version).
Political candidacy is determined in part by media corporations through manipulating presentations and report schemes (see spin (public relations)).
Some enforced conformity to dress codes in public (usually enforced in benign ways, but occasionally intrusive or humiliating incidents occur).
The use of Jesus/religion to sponsor products (while not entirely mainstream as a form of advertising, it is used quite frequently on both a small and large scale)
America being hated and verbally attacked by other nations perhaps, as Montag suggests, because it is viewed as possessing a disproportionate share of the world's wealth (see Fahrenheit 9/11).
The rise of political correctness which forces the revision or censorship of previously-published works to prevent offense on ethnic, racial, religious, political or moral grounds.
Front porches are becoming less common due to urbanization and lack of space and use.

But the following phenomena have not yet occurred (and Bradbury argues that the purpose of his fiction is to keep such things from happening):

Routine use of robots for pursuing suspects (currently in development for military application; civilian law enforcement would be expected to follow suit); this is also shown as a major plot line in the Terminator series.
Government endorsement of high-speed land vehicles on public highways.
Flat-screen televisions built into the walls of a house (these exist, but are currently a luxury; most are either placed on a special stand or are mounted onto the surface of existing walls).
The death of the Newspaper industry (this is in progress (although it is not a postive step) - readers are resorting to radio, television, and the internet as a news source.)
Use of nuclear weaponry as a primary weapon in wartime.

[edit]