Fahrenheit 451 Comparison Essay

Bradbury/Golding

Both Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and William Golding's Lord of The Flies are social commentaries. They are both stories that give a theoretical situation and explain human behavior through the actions of the people within these stories. Bradbury and Golding have some very similar as well as very different opinions on human behavior and what we need.

One thing that Bradbury and Golding did not share is their opinion on leadership and government. In Fahrenheit 451 The government had banned all of the books and there was an extreme punishment for people who were caught having them. It causes so much fear that when Montag goes to read Mildred and her friends a book one of them says "that's not right... we can't do that"

In F 451 they used fire to destroy and it was to be feared. They used the fire to burn the books and the houses and in some cases the people. When describing the first burning of the story he says "books died on the porch and the lawn of the house" Bradbury uses fire to show death; the death of books (Bradbury 3). This shows that Bradbury views fire as destructive and in a way evil. Also in the end the town was bombed and burned to the ground so in this case fire was used to obliterate and cause mass destruction as well as in a way cleanse. However, in LOF the kids used the fire to signal for help. Ralph shows this when he says "we've got to have special people for looking after the fire. Any day there may be a ship out there" (Golding 43). The fire symbolized hope for rescue and hope for their lives. And in the end though Jack was using it to burn the whole island down the fire saved them. A naval officer saw it and came out to save them. The officer said "we saw your smoke" showing that it was the fire that saved them (Golding 201). So Golding sees fire as something to bring life and hope. So these two authors have very different opinions on what fire symbolizes and what it