Fahrenheit 451 Hands Analysis

(AGG) “Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.” - Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451. (BS-1) It is throughout the novel that the hands of the main character, Montag, are seen seemingly acting by themselves, in order to help him to learn and grow. (BS-2) There are also many times when his hands are seen doing things for purely the purpose of destruction, but are in all actuality, doing these thing s in order to help him to achieve his goal of learning and growing. (BS-3) It is when our protagonist meets the final in a series of people who will teach him that the true purpose of hands, and by extension the life of those they are attached to, is revealed. (TS) Within the novel, Ray Bradbury uses symbolism of hands as a way to get the message that the purpose of our lives is to cause growth and change in a society.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is a novel about a futuristic society where books are banned and firemen burn books rather than put out fires. The main character Montag is a fireman who lives with his wife Mildred. Montag ends up stealing books which is against the law especially because he is a fireman; and Mildred is against anything that has to do with books. Society wants everyone to be happy but there 's an alarming mechanical hound in this novel that kills people and is asymbol of fear. Bradbury’s novel shows how a society overcomes the eradication of books through the use of symbolism, motif, and imagery.

Fahrenheit 451 is a book of warning. It is a reminder that we need knowledge to survive, and we need people who crave this knowledge to take over in generations to come. We need knowledge to combat ignorance and we get this knowledge from reading books and listening to other people's opinions. It is a warning of what might happen if we were to let the ignorance win, and a warning to never let this happen. It is a warning that what we have is valuable and a reminder to never take that for granted.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury gives simple and common objects or thoughts a complex to meaning to allow the characters an

The topic of thinking freely was explored as a major theme in the dystopian fiction “1984”. In this novel George Orwell writes of a world where one cannot even think freely, if you think an illegal thought the “thought police” will come and arrest you for a “thought crime”. It could be said that thoughts are for “1984” what books are in “Fahrenheit 451”, both are used as an outlet to express themselves but if found carrying out those activities you would be arrested. Montag struggles with conjuring up with original thoughts because he has never before had an outlet through which to reflect upon his own relationship with himself, he has never truly been himself. Montag’s mental loss of freedom can be contrasted with Caliban’s physical entrapment in “The Tempest”.

In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag experiences a paradigm shift as he transforms from a disoriented fireman to a learner who wants to gain knowledge through literature. Montag struggles with his newfound fascination with what was once trivial items because of his inability to ask questions under the bonds of conformity. However, the society prohibits people from reading for fear that they would express individuality and perhaps even rebel once they gain knowledge. Through the use of characterization and diction, the Bradbury demonstrates Montag’s desire for individuality and the society’s command of conformity in order to build a suspenseful mood, which keeps the reader’s interest. First, through the use of characterization,

We, the people, have every right to know about what’s going on in our town and in the world because if the people got together, we could end so many things, such as the drought, the kids in Africa who are starving, and we probably can’t bring world peace, but we could have a better world if we tried. Although It’s not fair that we don’t get to know what’s going on half the time, the worst case scenario is that everyone will go crazy. In the story, “Fahrenheit 451”, it states, “He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house” (Bradbury 3). When you read this, you see this as a man who is probably daydreaming about wanting to roast marshmallows and possibly sitting at a fireplace, but when you really dissect the sentence and read the sentences before that, it clearly says that he enjoyed burning the books that he took from people, because no one is allowed to read any sort of books. Another quote from the story says, “They crashed the front door and grabbed at a woman, though she was not running, she was not trying to escape” (Bradbury 35).

Fahrenheit 451 Fahrenheit 451 has different types of literary devices in order to convey a specific mood making the book more appealing. In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury uses the literary devices of diction and syntax to create the feeling of being distressed and confused while trying to read the Bible on the subway. Also a feeling of detachment and seriousness while Montag has a conversation with Mildred while she is in the bathroom getting Montag an aspirin. Bradbury uses diction to contribute to the mood of being confused and distressed while Montag is trying to read the Bible on the subway going to Faber’s house. On the subway Montag is being described with the words, “insane”, “gorged face”,” screaming”, and ”cry”.

Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, presents a society in which humans suffer from depression, fear, and loss of empathy which are the result of censorship of free thought and knowledge. Humans suffer from loss of empathy due to their lack of human interaction. People live in fear of the government as the dystopian society deprives the people of knowledge. Depression is evidenced by suicidal tendencies caused by hollow lives. Bradbury uses the loss of empathy in order to demonstrate the effects that censorship of free thought and knowledge have upon the individual and society.

Bradbury shines a light on what the future could be like if people continued to rely on technology so much. Many people who read Fahrenheit 451 can agree that Clarisse is definitely a favorite among characters. She is the most liked because she introduces Montag to that child wonder that he missed from spending all his time watching the ‘parlor walls.’ Bradbury used Clarisse to remind all of his readers how wonderful the imagination is, and to show the large contrast between the common person in Bradbury’s society, and the common person in contemporary society. If books were forgotten, then people's sense of imagination and wonder would be

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is full of important morals and themes. The book is flooded with symbolism and meaning to both the real world and science fiction world that Bradbury has created. With so many themes in this book it is difficult to choose the ones that contain the most importance, but some of them can be picked out from all the rest, for example, you must have bad things to have good things, you have to earn your happiness and finally, your opinions are influenced by the people around you. These themes show up multiple times in the book and are expressed heavily in the story.

In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Montag, the protagonist and book burner, battles between the light and dark sides of society, first with Beatty, his boss, and the government and then with Clarisse, a neighbor girl and Faber, an English professor. Montag is stuck in the dark burning books and is ignorant to the world around him. He moves towards greater awareness when he meets Clarisse and is awakened to the wonders of deep thought and books. Finally, he risks his life by trying to save the books.

Joseph Brodsky once said, “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” In an interview concerning his science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury echoed these words because his novel displays such a crime. Although Fahrenheit 451 classifies as fiction, the book points out several problems that now take on the body of reality. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 exhibits how technology possesses the capability of affecting people negatively through the characters’ actions and the story’s made-up creations.

The symbol of hands throughout the novel “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, hands of Montag and others represent their desires, thoughts, and intentions, Montag’s goal is specifically is for him to reach his goal of making his mark on the world, and separating himself from his ruined society’s average person. From early on in the book, Montag’s hands had been moving towards his goal he was not even fully aware of yet. Montag later on adapted to this goal his hands had been working towards, Montag now let his hands roam freely, they did what he himself didn't have the courage to do. In the novel everybodies hands show their goals, like Montag’s, Granger, his men, and Mildred’s self goals, reflect through their hands. Montag's motives, thoughts, and his intentions he doesn't have courage to do himself are represented in the symbol of his hands throughout the book, as well as the rest of the people in the society.

Annotated Works Cited Eller, Edward E. " An overview of Fahrenheit 451. " Literature Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2014.