Fire In Fahrenheit 451 Analysis

“ ‘There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; … You don’t stay for nothing’” (Bradbury 54). This except from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is something Guy Montag, the story’s main character who is a fireman, tries to figure out. In this futuristic setting, ironically, firemen do not put out fires, however, they start them. The firemen’s job in the novel is to burn down houses which contain books, and to make sure that books are destroyed. The society in the novel is one that is obsessed with technology and has people who are too engrossed in their televisions and their headphones then to read books and converse with one another. Bradbury uses many symbols in this novel to stress the importance of books and how important thinking and knowledge are. A major symbol that plays a major part of the plot throughout the novel is fire. In the beginning of the novel, fire symbolizes destruction and gloom. In the novel Guy describes what he does when he has been called to “duty” and when he uses the fire. The fire not only destroys the books and the ideas which were on the pages, but also the houses of which people live. On page three Bradbury writes, “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a pleasure to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 3). This statement portrays the fire as destructive and used to burn and blaze history. When looking at it from a literal perspective, only the physical copy of the book was destroyed,