Analysis Of Fahrenheit 451

Set in a dystopic future where books are burned instead of read, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury has a tone of defiance and enlightenment throughout, which is also seen in the painting Joan of Arc 's Death at the Stake by Hermann Anton Stilke. They deal with society and challenging beliefs, as well as being true to what they know is right.

In Fahrenheit 451, Montag is defiant against society by breaking the mould of the blank-faced consumer. He begins to think for himself and question his own actions as a Fireman when he meets Clarisse, a girl who looks at life with wonder. She points out to him that people are not enjoying life when she says, “‘I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly,’”(Bradbury

He breaks the fundamental law of society by reading the books, and even more so because of the fact that he is a Fireman, one of the men meant to eradicate the written word. Mildred portrays the average, banal person who wants to comply to law by staying ignorant to what the books hold. She follows her conditioning and slowly burns the books one by one. Montag even tries to change the minds of some of his wife’s friends, to which they react with anger and tears. One even recites the saying “poetry and tears, poetry and suicide…”, which is ironic because another woman 's husband jumped off a building in the past week (Bradbury 94, 101). Montag realizes there is no quick fix to change the ways of the average person, the strict censorship and detached outlook are too intrinsic to the

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake because she claimed to have communicated directly with God, an act of heresy against the Roman Catholic Church. In the painting, she is shown looking up towards the heavens in direct defiance of those punishing her for her belief. In her moments before death she is not crying or screaming but looks to be praying, maybe even hearing the voice of God in that moment. The crowd is in shadow, the sky is dark except a break in the clouds above her, showing a white fluffy cloud and a blue sky. She stands out brightly against the rest of the painting, wearing all white and cream, like an angel. Like Montag, her enlightenment is the root of her