Fast erratic driving is legal, two-hundred-foot-long billboards are created to match the irresponsible speeds, and if you fancy being destructive there are areas of fun that include wrecking cars, or just smashing glass. Here in the future, harm is accepted, allowed, and most scarily seemingly endorsed. Just as regular suicides and shooting of teenagers is an every day occurrence. Bradbury’s futuristic society is full of recklessness, lacks empathy, and shows an overwhelming absorption of interactive TV. In Fahrenheit 451 the only thing that’s seen as being dangerous, is free thinking.
The method used to combat such thoughts is to have books destroyed – their material viewed as helping independent thinking – for the most perilous thing to do here is to stand out from the crowd. But who destroys these books? Why, it’s firefighters of course, whose sole purpose is to set fire to books, while the owners are in turn arrested and removed from society.
This is the world of Fahrenheit 451, with the story’s protagonist, Guy Montag, being one such firefighter – but the problem is he’s begun to look at the world with a curious mind, in a large part due to the energetic and lively thoughts of his new neighbour Clarisse. But here, if you’re not one of “them” – a mindless society that are happy in their ordered chaos of harm, then you’re really the one who’s in danger.
Clarisse’s energetic nature invades the stillness of Montag’s life, her youth as such still unsquashed by an oppressive society. Multiple times Bradbury describes Clarisse as luminescent and standing out brighter than the fires Montag creates. Their relationship being more teacher-pupil, with Clarisse opening Montag’s eyes away from the flames, to see the world with wonder, and to question all that’s around them. As he begins to have his view on life widen; there are more scenes, their descriptions more detailed, and there are more people, and from this Montag thinks, feels and talks in greater depth.
In Bradbury’s writings he purposefully repeats lines that gently touch on areas of interest, until they become all-consuming e.g. a talk in the park with a stranger, something hidden in the grille of Montag’s home. In repeatedly mentioning these in passing, the viewer is drawn more and more into wanting to know Montag’s secrets.
A chilling aspect of Fahrenheit 451 is the passing mention of people committing suicide, its regularity becoming so frequent that there are “medical professionals” who treat the act of suicide rather than the person, their attitudes more of “handymen” –and soulless ones at that. Their jobs reduced to just $50 a head, what a bargain!
There is also an unnerving speech where children are treated as accessories; a passing character congratulating themself in having done their job in continuing the human race. Their children reduced to mere objects that are kept just a few days a month, but there’s no need for the character to punish themselves in looking after them, oh no, just treat them like a chore – done and dusted.
In the novel, humanity’s future technology is shown to be isolating, removing the needs, wants and hopes. This can be seen in the personalisation of TV programmes – designed to give humans the contact they secretly long for, even though it’s fake, while the reality of communicating in real life is turned away from in disgust. Bradbury catches this well with the character Mildred (Montag’s wife); her attitude cold, emotionless, unempathetic and yet her clinging to the TV with a fake family, shows the depth of loneliness that’s killing her.
In a scene of poignant clarity, Montag talks about how a robotic hound/spider has only its programming to live by, his colleague remarking back that the hound “…doesn’t think anything we don’t want it to think.” Which is an accurate portrayal of their world; where an unseen government has such a penetrating hold on the public that they fail to see its grasp and think only as they’re governed to. But Montag is beginning to see beyond that as he replies about the robot’s programming; “what a shame if that’s all it can ever know.”
Fahrenheit 451 has many analogies and metaphors, alongside clear remarks on society’s trajectory. But, and I hate to add a but, the novel’s thoughts are too indulgent in parts, its views on society as a whole can come across as a rant, and in this it loses some of its power. Furthermore the characters aren’t as rounded as you’d hope, the context/situations given more precedence over dialogue and development. The message of the book seen to be more important, which it is, but it’s done at the cost of losing what could be great villains such as Beatty – who, with his very thorough grasp of literature, makes you suspect he has bent the rules of reading multiple times – I would have liked to have seen this explored more.
The character with the most pizzazz; Clarisse, purposefully stood out the most, her essence making her more alive than the rest, and though I suspect this is intentional, I would have liked the other characters to have had a little more dimension to them.
However, Ray Bradbury’s work is very forward thinking, his novel accurately predicting the advancements in technology, to our desensitising and self-isolation. Is Ray Bradbury actually from the future? Fahrenheit 451 having closer relevancy to today’s climate than it did in 1953. In effect the content of Fahrenheit is a dark warning of what could happen, while also a celebration for those who stand apart and ask the question ‘why?’ The point is: don’t ever stop questioning, because if you do, you could one day be persecuted into permanent silence.
Other Notable Works by Ray Bradbury:
- Venus Remembered 2020
- Killer, Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury 2020
- Zen in the Art of Writing 1973
- I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories 1969
- A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories 1959
- The October Country 1955
- The Golden Apples of the Sun 1953
- A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories 1952
- The Illustrated Man 1951
- The Martian Chronicles 1950
Book Edition Information:
Publisher: Voyager (part of HarperCollins)
ISBN: 0007181701
Presented Edition: 2004 Paperback
Background image courtesy of William Moreland on Unsplash
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
Fast erratic driving is legal, two-hundred-foot-long billboards are created to match the irresponsible speeds, and if you fancy being destructive there are areas of fun that include wrecking cars, or just smashing glass. Here in the future, harm is accepted, allowed, and most scarily seemingly endorsed. Just as regular suicides and shooting of teenagers is an every day occurrence. Bradbury’s futuristic society is full of recklessness, lacks empathy, and shows an overwhelming absorption of interactive TV. In Fahrenheit 451 the only thing that’s seen as being dangerous, is free thinking.
The method used to combat such thoughts is to have books destroyed – their material viewed as helping independent thinking – for the most perilous thing to do here is to stand out from the crowd. But who destroys these books? Why, it’s firefighters of course, whose sole purpose is to set fire to books, while the owners are in turn arrested and removed from society.
This is the world of Fahrenheit 451, with the story’s protagonist, Guy Montag, being one such firefighter – but the problem is he’s begun to look at the world with a curious mind, in a large part due to the energetic and lively thoughts of his new neighbour Clarisse. But here, if you’re not one of “them” – a mindless society that are happy in their ordered chaos of harm, then you’re really the one who’s in danger.
Clarisse’s energetic nature invades the stillness of Montag’s life, her youth as such still unsquashed by an oppressive society. Multiple times Bradbury describes Clarisse as luminescent and standing out brighter than the fires Montag creates. Their relationship being more teacher-pupil, with Clarisse opening Montag’s eyes away from the flames, to see the world with wonder, and to question all that’s around them. As he begins to have his view on life widen; there are more scenes, their descriptions more detailed, and there are more people, and from this Montag thinks, feels and talks in greater depth.
In Bradbury’s writings he purposefully repeats lines that gently touch on areas of interest, until they become all-consuming e.g. a talk in the park with a stranger, something hidden in the grille of Montag’s home. In repeatedly mentioning these in passing, the viewer is drawn more and more into wanting to know Montag’s secrets.
A chilling aspect of Fahrenheit 451 is the passing mention of people committing suicide, its regularity becoming so frequent that there are “medical professionals” who treat the act of suicide rather than the person, their attitudes more of “handymen” –and soulless ones at that. Their jobs reduced to just $50 a head, what a bargain!
There is also an unnerving speech where children are treated as accessories; a passing character congratulating themself in having done their job in continuing the human race. Their children reduced to mere objects that are kept just a few days a month, but there’s no need for the character to punish themselves in looking after them, oh no, just treat them like a chore – done and dusted.
In the novel, humanity’s future technology is shown to be isolating, removing the needs, wants and hopes. This can be seen in the personalisation of TV programmes – designed to give humans the contact they secretly long for, even though it’s fake, while the reality of communicating in real life is turned away from in disgust. Bradbury catches this well with the character Mildred (Montag’s wife); her attitude cold, emotionless, unempathetic and yet her clinging to the TV with a fake family, shows the depth of loneliness that’s killing her.
In a scene of poignant clarity, Montag talks about how a robotic hound/spider has only its programming to live by, his colleague remarking back that the hound “…doesn’t think anything we don’t want it to think.” Which is an accurate portrayal of their world; where an unseen government has such a penetrating hold on the public that they fail to see its grasp and think only as they’re governed to. But Montag is beginning to see beyond that as he replies about the robot’s programming; “what a shame if that’s all it can ever know.”
Fahrenheit 451 has many analogies and metaphors, alongside clear remarks on society’s trajectory. But, and I hate to add a but, the novel’s thoughts are too indulgent in parts, its views on society as a whole can come across as a rant, and in this it loses some of its power. Furthermore the characters aren’t as rounded as you’d hope, the context/situations given more precedence over dialogue and development. The message of the book seen to be more important, which it is, but it’s done at the cost of losing what could be great villains such as Beatty – who, with his very thorough grasp of literature, makes you suspect he has bent the rules of reading multiple times – I would have liked to have seen this explored more.
The character with the most pizzazz; Clarisse, purposefully stood out the most, her essence making her more alive than the rest, and though I suspect this is intentional, I would have liked the other characters to have had a little more dimension to them.
However, Ray Bradbury’s work is very forward thinking, his novel accurately predicting the advancements in technology, to our desensitising and self-isolation. Is Ray Bradbury actually from the future? Fahrenheit 451 having closer relevancy to today’s climate than it did in 1953. In effect the content of Fahrenheit is a dark warning of what could happen, while also a celebration for those who stand apart and ask the question ‘why?’ The point is: don’t ever stop questioning, because if you do, you could one day be persecuted into permanent silence.
Other Notable Works by Ray Bradbury:
Book Edition Information:
Publisher: Voyager (part of HarperCollins)
ISBN: 0007181701
Presented Edition: 2004 Paperback
Background image courtesy of William Moreland on Unsplash
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