Farenheit 451

A detailed Summary of Farenheit 451

In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, a troubled society has emerged from a lack of literature caused by the governments control over censorship. The reader becomes aware of this by many literary techniques including symbolism and the portrayal of the setting and the characters. Also, Bradbury's inspiration for this novel helps us understand why he would write such a novel.

To begin, the novel was written in relation to the situation of the worlds society at the time. The novel was written in the 1950's. The political situation in Europe was suffering. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, known from this point as the USSR, was the major military powerhouse along with their adversaries the United States. The Cold war was running high leading up to the Cuban Missile crisis to take place in the next few years. The invention of the Atom Bomb showed how technology could be used as a form of mass destruction. Also, communism was a major political obstacle during that time period. In a communist government, the freedoms of speech and opinion are abolished. Bradbury, being a novelist and human rights advocate, was strongly opposed to communism and dictatorships around the world. He used novels s

In conjunction with the setting and the characters, Bradbury uses symbolism in the delineation of his story. Throughout the entire story, almost every object seems to serve a symbolic purpose. The most symbolic of these such objects is fire. The use of fire in the novel is very much like Montag's persona: very dynamic. From the opening line, fire seems to be directly associated with destruction. The description of pages being consumed and blackened by flames serves to place a predisposed image of fire as evil and destructive. The sole use of fire to annihilate the knowledge and opinions associated with books shows that its only intent is to destroy. It destroys book, homes, lives, Captain Beatty, Montag's house and finally, in the end, it destroys the city from which Montag narrowly escapes. In this, it is obvious that fire represents censorship. Fire is ultimately the censoring force. The link that Bradbury makes between the initial representation and description of fire shows that his message is that censorship is destructive. Even the titles of the divisions of the book are symbolic. For example, the first part of the book is "The Hearth and the Salamander". The hearth represent fire. The salamander, according to Greek mythology, is an animal that is unharmed by fire. The firemen all have the symbol of a salamander on their shoulder. Even their fire engine is called the salamander. Faber, an ex-English professor states in the book that "The salamander has devoured its own tail." The statement show that through their destructive behaviours, the firemen have destroyed themselves. It shows the reader that if they continue to censor

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Approximate Word count = 1107
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English