Review of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, the author utilizes the
luxuries of life in America today, in addition to various occupations
and technological advances, to show what life could be like if the
future takes a drastic turn for the worse. In this futuristic look at
man and his role in society, he turns man's best friend, the dog,
against man, changes the role of public servants and changes the value
of a person. Society has evolved to such an extreme that all
literature is illegal to possess. The intellectual thinking that
arises from reading books can often be dangerous, and the government
doesn't want to put up with this danger (Novel). The layout of
Fahrenheit 451 is critical to the reader, guiding them to perceive
themes and issues, from a specific angle. The novel is told through
the point of view of Guy Montag and a narrator, and creates a unique
perspective for the reader, allowing them to view the world through
someone with first hand experience of this totalitarian society and
then through the eyes of a stranger looking in. Through Montag the
reader feels and understands his unhappiness and like him yearns for
fulfillment through knowledge and truth. The narrator then allows the
reader to see Montag's transition, from an ignorant but curious
fireman, to a knowledgeable human, i...
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I have included a quote that I liked, and that relates to this book. '
There is no knowledge that is not power… and all our lives we must
search for power, and in that search, we gain knowledge."
WORKS CITED
Fahrenheit 451 Analysis. 8 November 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Analysis
McKey, Jami. "BookRags Book Notes on Fahrenheit 451." 3 November 2004.
http://www.bookrags.com/notes/451/
Novel Analysis, Fahrenheit 451. 6 November 2004.
http://www.novelguide.com/fahrenheit451/themeanalysis.html
Schellenberg, James. "Challenging Destiny, Science Fiction and Fantasy
Reviews." 5 November 2004.
http://home.golden.net/~csp/cd/reviews/f451.htm
Themes, Motifs & Symbols. 5 November 2004.
http://www.freebooknotes.com/page.php?link=http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/451/&book=133
In the dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows a futuristic world in the twenty-fourth century where people get caught up in technology. People refuse to think for themselves and allow technology to dominate their lives. To further develop his point, Bradbury illustrates the carelessness with which people use technology. He also brings out the admirable side of people when they use technology. However, along with the improvement of technology, the government establishes a censorship through strict rules and order. With the use of the fire truck that uses kerosene instead of water, the mechanical hound, seashell radio, the three-walled TV parlor, robot tellers, electric bees, and the Eye, Bradbury portrays how technology can benefit or destroy humans.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 60th Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1951. 001-158. Print.
novel. When he first meets Clarisse she says, “ Strange I heard once that a
Guy Montag is a fireman but instead of putting out fires, he lights them. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 following WWII when he saw technology becoming a part of daily life and getting faster at an exponential rate. Bradbury wanted to show that technology wasn’t always good, and in some cases could even be bad. Fahrenheit 451is set in a dystopian future that is viewed as a utopian one, void of knowledge and full of false fulfillment, where people have replaced experiences with entertainment. Ray Bradbury uses the book’s society to illustrate the negative effects of technology in everyday life.
“It was a pleasure to burn” Bradbury (1) Is the first line of Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451, the line itself is thought by the book's main protagonist Guy Montag. Although from that line alone he wound not exactly seem like the ideal protagonist of a science fiction novel. Throughout the story Montag has some life altering experiences that change him; he starts out as a fireman (the kind that burn books, as opposed to saving lives) and ends up belonging to group of intellectuals who memorize books in order to someday write them down again. Ever since he met a young girl named Clarisse he had been consumed with thoughts, thoughts of what things looked like, thoughts of what things smelled like and even thoughts of why things were the way they are. Guy Montag goes through many changes in a fairly brief period in the story. Throughout his journey he has three mentors: Clarisse, Faber and Granger. Clarisse is the first, the one who opens Montag’s eyes to the world around him, Faber gives him wisdom and helps him shape what he is now thinking and feeling, and Granger helps him establish his own identity.
You take advantage of your life every day. Have you ever wondered why? You never really think about how much independence you have and how some of us treat books like they’re useless. What you don’t realize is that both of those things are the reason that we live in such a free society. If we didn’t have books and independence, we would treat death and many other important things as if it were no big deal. That is the whole point of Ray Bradbury writing this book.
Perseverance pushes people towards what they believe in, a person’s perseverance is determined upon their beliefs. A person with strong beliefs will succeed greater to someone who does not. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag perseveres against society as well as himself in order to demolish censorship. Perseverance embraces values and drives people closer to their goals.
Imagine a society where owning books is illegal, and the penalty for their possession—to watch them combust into ashes. Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, illustrates just such a society. Bradbury wrote his science fiction in 1951 depicting a society of modern age with technology abundant in this day and age—even though such technology was unheard of in his day. Electronics such as headphones, wall-sized television sets, and automatic doors were all a significant part of Bradbury’s description of humanity. Human life styles were also predicted; the book described incredibly fast transportation, people spending countless hours watching television and listening to music, and the minimal interaction people had with one another. Comparing those traits with today’s world, many similarities emerge. Due to handheld devices, communication has transitioned to texting instead of face-to-face conversations. As customary of countless dystopian novels, Fahrenheit 451 conveys numerous correlations between society today and the fictional society within the book.
(AGG) Have you ever made a bet with someone, or tried to predict the future? The book Fahrenheit 451 does just that. (BS-1) Bradbury, the author, made many points about how political debates were all about visuals, and not 10 years later, Senator Kennedy won the first televised debate because he had better composure. (BS-2) Characters in Fahrenheit 451 suffer both short and long term memory loss and jitteriness due to their overexposure to technology, just like many teens today. (BS-3) Bradbury’s writing carries deep messages about the emptiness of technology and the loneliness of media, something often experienced today. (TS) Ray Bradbury makes many accurate predictions about technology and how it can impact our humanity.
The North Korean government is known as authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship. North Korea could be considered a start of a dystopia. Dystopia is a community or society where people are unhappy and usually not treated fairly. This relates how Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 shows the readers how a lost of connections with people and think for themselves can lead to a corrupt and violent society known as a dystopia.
Sisario, Peter “A study of the Allusions in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.” English Journal 59.2 (Feb. 1970): 201-205. Rpt. In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Deborah A. Stanley. Vol. 98. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Literature Resource Center. Web. 31 Jan. 2011.
The symbol of the Phoenix flashed across Montag’s vision as they reached the freshly burnt city from the bombs. No, thought Montag, it’s done and over with. He’s gone. It’s all over. I am okay. Shaking his head, he looked into the sky as if it was the first time he had seen it and squeezed his eyes shut tightly. Images of Mildred and the Mechanical Hound and Clarisse and Beatty and Faber flashed across his vision this time, causing Montag to stagger slightly. I can’t live like this, with all the worry and guilt and fear. Montag suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, quickly turned, prepared to fight and instead faced Granger.
In the book Fahrenheit 451 the theme is a society/world that revolves around being basically brain washed or programmed because of the lack of people not thinking for themselves concerning the loss of knowledge, and imagination from books that don't exist to them. In such stories as the Kurt Vonnegut's "You have insulted me letter" also involving censorship to better society from vulgarity and from certain aspects of life that could be seen as disruptive to day to day society which leads to censorship of language and books. Both stories deal with censorship and by that society is destructed in a certain way by the loss of knowledge from books.
Ray Bradbury’s overall purpose for creating Fahrenheit 451 is to tell us the challenges of what has to do in his journey. Montag’s journey is actually the author’s social commentary on the negative aspects of the 1950s. His examples of technology and violence can be connected to the theme of social commentary.