Symbolism in Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury, perhaps one of the best-known science fiction, wrote the amazing novel Fahrenheit 451. The novel is about Guy Montag, a 'fireman' who produces fires instead of eliminating them in order to burn books (Watt 2). One night while he is walking home from work he meets a young girl who stirs up his thoughts and curiosities like no one has before. She tells him of a world where fireman put out fires instead of starting them and where people read books and think for themselves (Allen 1). At a bookhouse, a woman chooses to burn and die with her books and afterwards Montag begins to believe that there is something truly amazing in books, something so amazing that a woman would kill herself for (Allen 1). At this point in the story Guy begins to read and steal books to rebel against society (Watt 2). Montag meets a professor named Faber and they conspire together to steal books. Montag soon turns against the authorities and flees their deadly hunting party in a hasty, unpremeditated act of homicide, and escapes the country (Watt 2). The novel ends as Montag joins a group in the county where each person becomes and narrates a book but for some strange reason refuses to interpret it (Slusser 63
). Symbolism is involved in many aspects of the story. In Fahrenheit 451Ray Bradbury employs various significant symbols through his distinct writing style. First, burning is an important symbol in the novel. The beginning of Fahrenheit 451 begins with, "it was a pleasure to burn. It was a pleasure to see things blackened and changed" (3). Burning rouses the "consequences of unharnessed technology and contemporary man's contented refusal to acknowledge these consequences" (Watt 1). In these first two sentences he creates a sense of curiosity and irony because in the story change is something controlled and unwanted by the government and society, so it is very unlikely that anything in Guy Montag's society could be changed. The burning described at this point represents the constructive energy that later leads to "apocalyptic catastrophe" which are the "polls" of the novel (Watt 1). At one instance, after Montag rebels, he tells Beatty something very important, "we never burned right..." (119). In his personal thoughts, Montag reminds himself, "burn them or they'll burn you...Right now it's as simple as that..."(123). What, whether, and how to burn are the issues in the novel (Watt 1). In an interesting thought Montag comes upon an idea about burning that states "the sun burnt every day. It burnt time...So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt! One of them had to stop burning" (141). In addition to fire, burning, and the hound, Montag's hands become another consequential and reoccurring symbol in the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Montag's "self-aggrandizing" hands are a reflection of his emptiness (McGiveron 1). When Montag steals two books the narrator describes what has happened as, "Montag had done nothing. His hand had done it all, his hand, with a brain of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had turned thief" (37). Montag reflects his conscience and curiosity through his hands and now his hands reflect his nervousness at his new possible discovery (
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Approximate Word count = 1406
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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