Fahrenheit51 4 5 Essay, Research Paper
Title of work: Fahrenheit 451
Author and Date: Ray Bradbury 1953
Country of Author: United States
Character:
1) Guy Montag He is the main character in Fahrenheit 451. Montag is a fireman who is a very important person in the fire department. What the requirement for firefighters to do in the story isn t really to put out fires, but to start fires. Thus the term firefighters doesn t truly go along, what they do is get calls of book hide-aways and to fine them and consume them with fire, and also the house in which they are in. He has worked there at the station for about 10 years and is getting a promotion for all of his good handling of getting to his call and burning all the books he finds well. The books describes Montag very well and develops him very well. It goes through all the levels of his life from personal, work, what he thinks, what could happen, what he thinks will happen, so it forms his life and background very well. Guy s profession is burning books because the government believes that books are the way to free minds and could make the people smart, so they order them burned, then in the process, destroying the real culture of the world. Even though this is just, not to own any types of books Montag is a book reader himself, so throughout the story, he is becoming more and more worryful about somebody finding out about his mini stock pile of books that he reads from time to time.
2) Fire Chief Beatty he is the chief at the local fire department where Guy Montag works at. He is a smart man who also knows about books but is totally into the way of burning them. He can certainly tell many bad things about books. How they can change the mind, make you into an anti-social person. There is a part in the book where he visits Montag when he is sick, Beatty speaks with him for some while about books. He explains what is wrong with them, the whole bit. That is when Beatty begins to suspect that Guy has books. He answers some of Beatty s questions in a peculiar way, almost as though he isn t even there. Beatty soon is turned on by Montag s wife a few days later of him having books. Guy is made to burn down his own house, and his wife Mildred leaves him right there on the spot. Montag soon forces himself to kill Beatty, which he does. Montag is then on the run from the law.
3) Mildred Montag She is very strange a person. It comes out to you many times in the book Why are they even married in your mind. Mildred is a very serious, here and now type of guy, and doesn t talk about things aren t nonsense. Mildred is a person who is far away in her own mind and not ethical. She truly doesn t care how Guy s day was or to hear anything of what he wants to do. She just talks and talks. She is here, she is now, she is talking, nothing else occurs when she talks. Near the end of the book, before Montag is forced into burning down his house, she becomes very uneasy with him and dislikes what books that he has, that is soon when she calls Montag s fire chief to come to their house.
4) Clarisse McClellan A very knowledgeable person if you ask me. She befriends Montag at almost the exact beginning of the book. She openly express her thoughts in no fear that Montag may turn her in. Her uncle told her many things of the world before the time of burning books and traveling at high rates of speed. She talks about how dandelions are fun, how she symbolizes the man in the moon, and how she knew that billboards before were only 20 feet long not 200 feet long like they were today {in the book}. The books clearly defines her in only a few fully depicted pages, then she is supposedly killed by fast drivers soon after.
5) Faber He is a past professor who are one of the many that read a single book then memorize it after the first time reading it. He has lived in seclusion for many years now and immediately puts his trust in Montag s hands. They attempt to possibly destroy the fire station and its crew, but all fails back to when Beatty found out about Montag s secret.
Settings:
1) Fire Station it has the same physic (appearance) as a normal fire station does, yet there are no water pumps and no reels of hundreds of feet of hose as it is their duty to burn, not extinguish.
2) Montag residence just like the way you see houses in the future, electronic sliding doors, smart toasters, and other small amenities. There is no porch, and no true detail is giving on how the interior d cor is set up.
3) Faber s Residence nothing very significant about the grounds. It s a house, has a few rooms, one with drawings of his ideas, and a room with some of his little inventions.
Plot Summary:
To burn all the books that are reported and to arrest those of whom are the owners of the books. To be that of what is right, don t read books, and to make sure of not owning any books for the possibility of being found. Things seem to going just like that, until their ways are foiled by the undoing of one s mind, Guy Montag. He, a fire starter, works for the fire department for close to ten years and is close to a promotion. Guy becomes in contact with many different minds and views about how they think the burning of books are wrong and of how they describe a day that no one ever talks about. Like a day like ours, we are insisted upon to be literate and to read. To be able to think freely. Montag is very much touched by one s uncle s teachings to a Clarisse McClellan.
She tells him of beautiful days that were free of the book burning. He then meets a professor who s will, and many others, is to memorize books, and burn them in the hope that they can once again bring back the greatest of works back to print.
Symbols
1) Book of Job Faber had brought up the book of Job during one of the Montag to Faber conversations through their little ear pieces.
2) A tree of life– Montag wondered if there was a tree of life on either side of the river when he was traveling back up river after the bombing of the city with the old professors.
3) Bombs They would have indefinitely meant death. They were sent upon the city to destroy it.
4) Clarisse McClellan She could have been a symbol for the reborn world, and of a new hope.
5) Faber Another symbol for a new hope, he was originally a significant member of the good the world that used to strive and flourish anyhow.
Other Imagery and Purpose:
1) The river (?) He was traveling through the river, fleeing those hands of the law that were after him for the killing of his fire chief. Montag, then seems to have came out of the river like a totally new man. It seemed as though he no thoughts of evil, and he had turned all good and would follow the righteous professors into the onslaught of bring books backs to life.
2) The 10 Lane Boulevard This was like a death scape. Montag just trying to cross it could have been ran over, which was almost imminent because a beetle was in the action of smashing him into pieces.
Significance of Title:
The basis of Fahrenheit 451 comes into play in several cases in the story. The temperature that they say books burn is 451 degrees. 451 is also one of the insignia s that the firemen carry upon their arms for they showing of being with the fire department. This can also signify the way of eliminating individuality.
Authors Techniques:
1) Allusion Ray Bradbury brings into play of the book of job. The river signifies possibly of a baptism.
2) Simile He uses these many times to give examples to what of fire does it remind people of, and how in the end, it totally signifies death in Montag s behalf.
3) Suspense He uses this in the case to as if you read a page, and you turn the page, that you can t really figure out what s going to happen. So, this means reading the whole book would make it imperative.
4) Description He describes the characters very well and develops them significantly so that you can know about their past and you can t predict what would happen to them next.
5) Onomonopeaia A significant page where he uses this is Page 55. He uses almost half a paragraph with that usage of that technique.
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