Fahrenheit 451 Setting Analysis

Bradbury characterizes the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 as unoriginal duplicates in this passage by utilising sight and smell imagery as well as rhetorical questions to make apparent the uniformity of the society and its connection to the loss of individual identity.

In the fictional novel "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, the two character Montag and Clarisse, lived in the future where the government is corrupted. As time evolve and the world is changing, the sense of logic become twisted in this society. The world in "Fahrenheit 451" is a place where the idea of "firemen put fires out" appeared to be "long ago" (Bradbury 25). Firemen in this society no longer put out fire, but instead going to start them. The action of a firemen spraying "kerosene" over burning fire is described as an "amazing conductor playing all the symphonies" suggest that this society is twisted (Bradbury 2). Furthermore, the government of this world is a strict and controlling group, for they made reading books "against the law"

Ray Bradbury’s depiction of a dystopia is interpreted through Guy Montag and his escape from society as well as Captain Beatty and his desire to get rid of books when they explore the technology and its advances in his novel, Fahrenheit 451. Born in a time of despair from the ongoing World War II, Bradbury fell in love with books as well as horror from a young age, and he enjoyed the sense of adventure it created (“Ray”). Bradbury uses “Fahrenheit 451 [as a reflection of his] lifelong love of books and his defense of the imagination against the menace of technology and government manipulation” (“Ray”), and bases his plots, characters, and themes on his past experiences and memories. World War II is a time period when literature was suddenly disappearing and technology became greatly significant. Realizing the troubles technology will create, Bradbury wrote stories based on dystopian affairs, including his most powerful novel, Fahrenheit 451.

After reading the article Are We Living In Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 I have come to the conclusion that I do agree we are living in Fahrenheit 451 for many reasons.

In Fahrenheit 451, all the citizens acquiesce to what the government wants them to do. In their society, thinking is outlawed, leaving the authority with ultimate control over the town. Everyone follows the same routine everyday, as if they were drones. The people’s leisure activities are the changeless: driving so fast that everything is a blur and violence. They are also constantly distracted by cacophonous sounds to make thinking difficult. Ray Bradbury criticizes the flaws of the dystopian society through their pursuit of happiness and elimination of thought.

We would all most likely want to live in an ideal society also known as utopia, however, what does an ideal society actually mean to you? An ideal society would be the perfect society to live in. Everybody has their own views and ideas, so the idea of the perfect society may be different to other people, someone else 's idea of the perfect society may be considered a dystopian society to another person.

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is a uniquely shocking and provocative novel about a dystopian society set in a future where reading is outlawed, thinking is considered a sin, technology is at its prime, and human interaction is scarce. Through his main protagonist, Guy Montag, Bradbury brings attention to the dangers of a controlled society, and the problems that can arise from censorship. As a fireman, it is Guy's job to destroy books, and start fires rather than put them out. After meeting a series of unusual characters, a spark is ignited in Montag and he develops a desire for knowledge and a want to protect the books. Bradbury's novel teaches its readers how too much censorship and control can lead to further damage and the repetition of history’s mistakes through the use of symbolism, imagery, and motif.

Imagine a world where firemen start fires instead of putting them out. Fahrenheit 451 is set in a utopian, or dystopian to us, society, where books are burned and people rarely have real social interaction. Although Fahrenheit 451 seems nowhere close to our society, we are both alike and different to their world.

The novel, Fahrenheit 451, presents a future society where books are prohibited and the firemen burn any that are. The title is the temperature at which books burn. It was written by Ray Bradbury and first published in October 1953. In this novel, protagonist Montag changes his understanding in various aspects such as love or his human relationship throughout the book. However, among all of these, fire – the main theme of this novel – has the most significance as it also changes his understanding of knowledge from books. Bradbury portrays how Montag’s perception of fire and burning books with his personal development changes by the different choices he makes throughout the novel.

A large majority of books use many types of literary elements and devices. An example of a literary device is imagery; the five senses. This is one of the most descriptive types of writing as it conveys what the character is feeling or smelling. It’s a more human way of writing in some ways.

Webster’s Dictionary defines character as, “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual”, these qualities can range from a simple opinion, to an action, to a character’s lifestyle. While Guy Montag from Fahrenheit 451 and Wade from Ready Player One are both uniquely distinct, they share many qualities that unites them as one.

Mrs. Mildred Montag has the “perfect” life. She does not work inside or outside of the home. Her only responsibility is to have no responsibility for anything, to just have “fun” watching the parlor TV, driving fast, “talking” with her friends. However, she is one of the most unhappy characters in the whole story. She lives to watch the parlor “family” of characters, and at night she listens to two small “seashell radios” to drown out any thoughts she might be having. She has no conscious idea that she is not happy. Near the beginning of the story, Montag finds that Mildred has consumed an entire bottle of sleeping pills in one night. He calls the emergency number, and two machine operators come to pump her stomach. In the morning, Mildred does not remember a thing, and just believes she has a hangover, even after Montag tries to tell her the truth. It is unclear whether she actually tried to kill herself, or if she just kept taking the pills and then forgetting about them, longing for the blankness of sleep. Either way, no matter what she thinks, Mildred is not happy. Her life, the life the society of Fahrenheit 451 fought for, the life of constant fun and no consequences, is so pointless. Later, when Montag is outside the city, now under siege, with the book people, he remembers Mildred. She is in the city, and in grave danger. Granger tries to comfort him by saying that people are never really gone, their

Edward Eller is an assistant professor at Northeast Louisiana University1. He creates the point in “An Overview of Fahrenheit 451” by highlighting how technology is uncontrollably taking over the world, and compares it to how Mildred is devoted to technology saying, “immerses herself in the media provided for her to consume. Whenever she is not at the TV, she plugs in her earphones, always soaking up the artificial stimulus and messages someone else feeds to her,” Not only is technology taking over the world, but it is also taking over people. Technology brainwashed Mildred and the lack of social skills she contains with others is completely appropriate in her society. Mildred is so fixated with her TV family to the point where she tells Montag she wants him to put in a fourth wall-TV. This is similar to The Handmaid’s Tale, where technology is used only by the regime of Gilead. At the beginning of the novel, Offred explains her fear of being observed at all times, not only by the commander, but by everyone else in the regime. Throughout the article, the readers see that the fear of “the most complete violation of humanity would be the replacement of the human with machine in perfect conformity with the system which created it.”

Ray Bradbury’s style in Fahrenheit 451 is unique, and it helps add to the story’s atmosphere and tone. Bradbury structures his sentences in such a way that it makes the described situation feel heavier, and more meaningful. His vocabulary adds a rich sense of imagery, this is also combined with his use of figurative language throughout, compliments it further. These things come together to form a type of style that’s powerful, bizarre, and even confusing at times. All in all however, it’s effective, and that’s all that matters.

Both Ray Bradbury and E.B. White’s given excepts analyze the purpose of direction in life through descriptions of the natural world. For example, the motif of smells is evident in both excerpts to connect the ideas of direction, observation, and searching to physical images and things. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury writes “There must have been a billion leaves on the land; he waded in them, a dry river smelling of hot cloves and warm dust” (144). Meanwhile, in Stuart Little, the repairman describes, “I have sat at peace on the freight platforms of railroad junctions in the north, in the warm hours and with the warm smells”. “Warm smells” carries the connotation of being attractive to the senses. In both passages, the smells are used to orient the characters in a direction; the repairman, Stuart Little, and Montag each move follow the appealing smells of nature, which ultimately provides them with both physical and mental direction.