Fahrenheit

Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury

Author:

Ray Bradbury has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems. Among his famous works are "The Illustrated Man", "The Martian Chronicles", "A Graveyard for Lunatics", "Green Shadows, White Whale". He wrote the screenplays for "It came from Outer Space", "Something Wicked this Way comes" and "Moby Dick". When one of the Apollo Astronaut teams landed on the moon, they named Dandelion Crater there to honour Bradbury's novel "Dandelion Wine". Bradbury was the Idea Consultant for the United States Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, has written the basic scenario for the interior of Spaceship Earth at EPCOT, Disney World, and is doing consultant work on city engineering and rapid transit.

Interpretation:

The book is set in uncertain future: The society is influenced by 3-d, life-size so-called parlours, ads, jingles nearly 24 hours a day. While sleeping, people put on so-called seashells (micro ear radios). They only have virtual families existing in these parlours. The houses have no front porches, thus people do not get the idea to sit there, discussing, observing nature, philosophising, but just to sit in front of the parlours, listening to manipulating information and not caring and even knowing about imminent world-wide political problems. So they live at the edge of war without knowing about it. Their one and only sense of life is to be and stay happy. So they detest poetry, which can people make start to cry and turn melancholically. The Government changed history, e.g. firemen were established in 1790 to burn English-influenced books in the colonies, the first fireman was Benjamin Franklin, and houses have always been fireproof. Politics were trimmed down to headlines, durance of schools was shortened, teaching languages, history and philosophy was dropped, whereas sports and physical education were stressed. So all were made equal (dumb), and intellectuals were made outsiders. In this society kids are used to kill each other, relax in car wrecking and window smashing places and represent an acquisition that is not worth being made.

Guy Montag is one of these firemen burning books with the use of flame throwers and kerosene. One day he starts to steal books instead of burning them. Though he is married with Mildred, he regularly meets Clarisse, a so-called antisocial, living next door to him, who brings him in touch with nature, a thing Montag never had the time to discover. Then Clarisse is said to be killed, and her family moved to another town. Montag starts to think about the forbidden books, things people were killed for. He shows the stolen books to Mildred, who decides to call the firemen. So Montag has to burn down his very own house. Later he quits his job and calls Mr Faber, an older professor whom he once met in the park, and shows him his books. According to Faber, the society lacks 3 essential things: quality of information, leisure time to think about these information, the right to carry out actions based on what they learn from the interaction of the first two things. Faber owns some electronical device, which can put thoughts into people's minds. Montag takes the audio capsule and so Montag and Faber seem to be one mind. Montag kills his chef, Mr. Beatty and later on is pursued by a Mechanical Hound, an electronical killing-machine. Faber flees to St. Louis and Montag is able to flee and build up a connection with other educated people, living along rusting railways. These people have built up a net of thinkers, who have all certain books in their minds. After the city has been attacked by bombarding and been totally destroyed, they know that now their time had come to remember and rebuild the real history, with all its masterpieces of human work.

Characters:

Guy Montag:

As being the star of the book, he is the one who turns from a more or less typical member of this society into another more educated and critical person. He is one of these fighting against the always happy society

Mr. Faber:

He is one of the surviving more educated people, who describes himself as a coward, because he saw the changing of things and did not fight against it effectively.

Mildred:

Mildred Montag represents a typical member of this society, not having any kind of critical point of view. Although they are married, they do not really know each other. She spends all her time with the virtual family. After having seen the stolen, illegal books, she no longer trusts her husband and calls the firemen.

My Own Opinion:

I really enjoyed reading this book and experiencing Bradbury's dazzling and shocking ideas about future.