Analytical Essay On Fahrenheit 451

The future is a wondrous place. Everyone knows where is lies, yet no one has ever been there. It is constantly imagined, yet all ideas of what the future contains are affected by each action that takes place in the present. Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 is of a futuristic dystopian society characterized by complete government control. Its main source of power comes from limited access to knowledge—books are illegal. Guy Montag is a firefighter; however, his job is to start fires instead of put them out. He enjoys his job, takes pleasure in the orange blaze, but his whole perspective changes when he meets Clarisse McClellan. Their conversations cause Guy to realize the importance of thinking, of knowledge, and how the society lacks these

Guy Montag is the protagonist of the novel, and he represents some of the most rudimentary components of mankind—compassion, inquisition, and imperfection. His role becomes clear in the end of the novel when Bradbury writes, “There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been the first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again” (Bradbury 156). Montag is a theoretical phoenix and the embodiment of mankind. He burns himself and the pyre when he decides to read the stolen books. Guy’s delirious struggle over his unhappiness and limited access to knowledge points out the civilization has neared its lowest point. However, he figuratively reaches rebirth when he reaches the river. The water cleanses him of his past, and Guy starts anew with the railmen and life on the tracks. He realizes that fire can provide as well as take away, and that there is still hope for the people. The bomb effectively pushes society into rebirth, but the survivors are ready to

It glorifies a fast-paced life and devotion to entertainment, yet unbeknownst to the people the government uses this as a way for control. The first aspect of culture implemented for control is the overall rushed way of life. Clarisse comments on the increased rush when she says, “I sometimes think drivers don’t’ know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly… If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he’d say, that’s grass!” (Bradbury 6). The reason for quickness of everything is that it doesn’t allow people to have any idle time. There is no time for them to think, for them to question what is going on in the daily life. If the people are always doing something, and doing it as quickly as they can, then they will always be compliant and unknowing of what’s surrounding them. Another large part of the society is the focus on entertainment. Entertainment and technology combine to create a gross addiction that distracts the people from the issues in society: “ ‘How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It’s only two thousand dollars.’ ‘That’s one-third of my yearly pay’ ” (Bradbury 18). Bradbury predicts what will happen to our future if society continues in the way we are going. Many people today are addicted to the technology we have at our fingertips, and interpersonal connects are dwindling because of it. This leads to