Literature Analysis: Fahrenheit 451

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters. - Friedrich Nietzsche


1. "We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." (pg. 37)
"Fahrenheit 451"
Day 1 - 18:00:00
Guy Montag
Firemen
Dystopian Future

Guy Montag is your typical citizen in Fahrenheit 451. He's concerned only about pleasure. He hates books (after all, he burns them), in fact, he hates anything that makes him think. He indulges in shallow entertainment, hence his many parlor walls. He is apathetic about the outside world and anyone around him, concerned only about being "happy". He does not care about the "why", but about the "how". But that all changes when Guy meets Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse: an intellect, one who cared more about the "why" than the "how", one who did not care for the shallow entertainment rampant in society, one who constantly asks questions. At first, Guy is perturbed, even annoyed by her attitude and actions. She's weird, she has no friends, she won't conform to society, etc. However, after she asks him a simple question "Are you happy?", that begins to turn the cogs in his head. He starts questioning the purpose of his life, and whether the pursuit of happiness through cheap entertainment is the way to go. He starts meditating on his marriage, and quickly realizes that if his wife, Mildred, were to die he wouldn't care one bit. Things really start to go haywire when, before burning down a house, Guy reads a snippet of a book and steals it. He becomes frustrated because the words have no meaning to him. Trained all along with parlor rooms and three-dimensional porn "novels", he is not prepared for the multifaced nature of a novel. As such, it is a struggle for him. However, he does not give up. Rather, it makes him more determined. Now, he starts seeing through the smoke and mirrors of society. He attempts to convince Mildred of the flaws and decay of society, but to no avail. She is too addicted to pain killers and parlor rooms, too willing to conform to society's wills, to be of use. She simply shrugs it off. Of course, this leaves Guy at a crossroads. On one hand, he is starting to think for himself, and starting to realize that there's more to life than mindless entertainment. On the other, he is a firemen. All his life, he has been tasked with destroying knowledge, and yet here is his hoarding books. And his boss, his captain, Beatty, knows this. In fact, Beatty explains to Guy the "evolution" of firemen:
 According to Beatty, the structure of society changed after the Civil War. Populations boomed, and with it can a demand for entertainment. However, people didn't want "complex" entertainment. They wanted "watered-down", simple entertainment. "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different.... Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?... Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.... Classics cut to fit fifteen minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two- minute book column..." (pg. 50) As such, books became more and more abridged to fit the increasingly short attention spans of society. However, that wasn't enough. Soon, interest groups began lambasting books for their controversial content. Books became more and more homogenized and bland due to censorship. "The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!" (pg. 52) Eventually, books became banned, because someone would inevitably be "hurt" by it. This would lead to the evolution of the fireman. Since homes were becoming more and more fire-proof, the goal of the fireman was to preserve "happiness". Since people aren't obviously happy when they feel insulted, destroy what makes them unhappy. In short, burn and ban all books.
Which leads us back to Guy Montag. Becoming more and more concerned about the preservation of society and of knowledge as a whole. As such, he visits Faber, an old English professor, in the hopes that Faber can better explain the meaning behind books. Faber begins teaching Montag about the importance of knowledge, and assigns Guy an earpiece so he can better instruct Montag throughout his daily life. However, Guy oversteps his boundaries when he attempts to convince Mildred, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles about the importance of knowledge and how society is an outcry of what it once was. However, it is of no use, as the three ladies are beyond help at this point. Attempting to scare them with literature, Montag instead causes them to become emotional. This leads Mildred to betray Montag and report all of his books to the other fireman. As such, Guy and Beatty are tasked with burning his house. Eventually, Guy and Beatty are at a crossroads, with Beatty too disillusioned to believe anything can be improved, while Guy still optimistic of the future ahead. Beatty threatens to hunt down Faber, which leads to Guy burning him alive with a flamethrower. Forced to be on the run, Guy heads over to Faber, where he discovers that the media has made a giant spectacle of this "cat-and-mouse" chase. Faber convinces Guy to head to the countryside, there he'll meet exiles who tasked themselves with memorizing literature for when society is ready to embrace it again. Eventually Guy reaches the exiles and discovers that the media, frustrated over his apparent escape, killed a man walking the street in an attempt to cover up his escape. However, at that moment, the world ends. Jets fly overhead and drop nuclear bombs over the city, effectively leveling it. The story ends with Guy and Co. walking towards the city, ready to repopulate and rebuild society.

"Fahrenheit 451"
Day 7 - 06:00:00
Guy Montag
Exile
Dystopian Future

2. The theme of the novel is very simple, even though Ray has attempted to change it as of late. It's the power of knowledge, and the observation of the degradation of society as a whole. Concerned with constant entertainment and being politically correct, society has attempted to create a "safe haven", one free from anyone being slighted or insulted. However, by attempting to do it, society has stifled creativity and knowledge itself. As such, novels like Fahrenheit 451 are tossed out due to their "insulting nature" and replaced with porn. Concerned about nothing more than being entertained at every second of every minute of every day, society in turn ruins the purpose of schools. Schools become shorter, the curriculum less intensive.The focus becomes sports, games.  Eventually, English isn't even a required class. Students graduate without knowing how to read or write or do math. Instead, it's all about shallow entertainment. It's all about TVs, short books and comics. Anything that is remotely erudite is thrown away because people feel stupid when they try to read it. People become apathetic about the outside world, because it's not entertaining. In an attempt to create uniformity, society acts like a dictatorship, stripping away information because it might be harmful to others. People, by living the fast life, become nothing more than shallow sheep, constantly bawing for new, condensed entertainment that has no real purpose because their attention spans are too small to actually enjoy something.

3. Ray's tone is fairly gloomy and pessimistic. Society has become nothing more than animals fighting for the last scrap, desperate to find any form of entertainment. For example: "I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way?" (pg. 27) Sounds almost exactly like Lord of the Flies, the difference being that in LOTF, the kids began to degrade away from society while in Fahrenheit 451, kids are degrading because of society. Another example is society's general view of books, that they are a waste of time and unimportant. "Well, Montag, take my word for it, I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach or believe. They're about nonexistent people, figments of imagination, if they're fiction. And if they're nonfiction, it's worse, one professor calling another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another's gullet. All of them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You come away lost." (pg. 57) Or the attitude of Faber, one of the few intellectuals left in the city? "What? Men quoting Milton? Saying, I remember Sophocles? Reminding survivors that man has his good side, too? They will only gather up their stones to hurl at each other... Why waste your final hours racing about your cage denying you're a squirrel?" (pg. 78) People are pessimistic about the future, which in turn leads them to do nothing about improving society. This is reflected in his tone.

4. One literary element Ray Bradbury uses is tone. This is a dystopian novel, and one important characteristic of a dystopian novel is the tone. Fahrenheit 451 is no different. By creating a somber, pessimistic mood, we readers are pulled into the novel and get a better sense of the message that Ray was trying to portray.
Another literary element Ray uses is symbolism. For example, the exiles characterize human behavior as a phoenix. A creature that destroys itself in a fire, but rises again from its ashes. Humans destroy each other with fire. However, the head of the exiles, Granger, believes that if books are to be preserved, humans can learn from their mistakes and not go through a perpetual cycle of destroy and then create. This provides a sense of hope, that all is not lost.
Another literary element used is paradoxes, most notably in describing Mildred and society as a whole. For example, Mildred's bedroom is both "not empty" and "indeed empty". That is a symbol that signifies the problems of society. Physically, Mildred is there. But mentally, her mind is somewhere else, in some distant land where she ponders about entertainment, ignorant about the world around her.
Another literary element used is imagery. Fire is used constantly throughout the novel. Whether it be Montag burning in rage and humility over Clarisse, the firemen using it to destroy, Montag using it to warm himself, the bombs blowing up the city, the phoenix burning then rising from its ashes or Mrs. Blake using it as a martyr, it is everywhere.
A final literary element used is setting. This is a dystopian future. As such, we get a place where children kill each other frequently, where death is but an afterthought, where knowledge is prohibited, where entertainment has replaced family, and where no-one cares that a giant war is going on. Montag is an important cog for the government, and yet he earns a whopping six thousand a year. Society is unhappy but does not know it. They are ignorant, but can not see it. They are blind, but can not feel it.

Characterization
1. An example of indirect characterization is when Ray says that the room is both "not empty" and "indeed empty". He is indirectly saying that Mildred, mentally, is simply not there. The painkillers, the parlor rooms, have clearly impaired her ability to think. Another example is the beginning quote "It was a pleasure to burn." We get a sense that Montag, for all intents and purposes, enjoys his job, and enjoys burning things. We don't need to know why, but we know he does.
An example of direct characterization is "Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiousity." (pg. 5) Or "Her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall, but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she felt no shadow." (pg. 12) I would argue that from an impact standpoint, his usage of direct characterization was more effective than his usage of indirect characterization.

2. Ray's tone is constant. There is no need for him to change his tone based on his characters (after all, this is a gloomy dystopia) so why bother? It would be like Spielberg changing the camera lens for Saving Private Ryan to be less grainy in certain scenes when Miller is talking to his battalion. It makes no sense. Or Deus Ex: Human Revolutions removing the gold filter in certain scenes when Adam Jensen is present.

3. Guy is a dynamic, round character. In the beginning, he is simply another member of society, one who believes everything he is told without question. He enjoys the destruction of books, and hates knowledge. He believes he is happy. However, as the story progresses, so does he. He starts asking more questions, starts doubting what he is being told. He acknowledges the flaws of society and wishes to correct them. In the end, he is a defender of books, becoming one who has tasked himself of remembering certain books so that the knowledge can be passed down to future generations.

4. In the end, I felt that I had met a real character. I could see the world as Guy could see it, smell the world as he would, and hear the world as he would. As opposed to The Jungle, he feels less like a tool to achieve a means, but more as a real person. A misguided person who found his way. Where society believed what it was told, he learned that nothing is true. And where he was restrained by law or morality, he learned that everything is permitted.