Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451

Author	Ray Bradbury
Language	English
Genre	Dystopian novel
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	1953
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	208 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-7432-4722-1 (Hardcover)

This article is about the novel. For the 1966 film adaptation, see Fahrenheit 451 (1966 film). For the rock band of the same name, see Fahrenheit 451 (band).

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian fiction novel by Ray Bradbury.

It is set in a world in which the reading of books is banned and critical thought is suppressed; the central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this case, means "book burner"). 451 degrees Fahrenheit (about 233°C) is stated as "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns ...". It was originally published as a shorter novella The Fireman in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. A film adaptation, by François Truffaut, was released in 1966, and another is anticipated. In addition to the movies, there have been at least two BBC Radio 4 dramatizations, both of which follow the book very closely.

The novel reflects several major concerns of the time of its writing: what Bradbury has called "the thought-destroying force" of McCarthyism in the 1950s; the book-burnings in Nazi Germany starting in 1933; Stalin's suppression of authors and books in the Soviet Union; and the horrible consequences of an explosion of a nuclear weapon. "I meant all kinds of tyrannies anywhere in the world at any time, right, left, or middle," Bradbury has said.

One particularly ironic circumstance is that, unbeknownst to Bradbury, his publisher released a censored edition in 1967 that eliminated the words "damn" and "hell" for distribution to schools. Later editions with all words restored include a "Coda" from the author describing this event and further thoughts on censorship and "well-meaning" revisionism.

Bradbury has written that the entirety of his novel was written in the basement of the UCLA library on a pay typewriter. His original intention in writing Fahrenheit 451 was to show his great love for books and libraries. He has often referred to Montag as an allusion to himself.

On the alienation of people by media, Bradbury has said:

In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.

Plot summary

Template:Spoiler The story takes place in an unspecified future time, possibly sometime in the twenty-first or twenty-second century, in an America which has turned short-sightedly hedonistic and rabidly anti-intellectual, accompanied by the complete abandonment of self-control. At this point, books have been made obsolete due to the increasingly frenetic pace of life and the ever-shortening attention span of the common man — nobody has "time" to read anymore, and possession of books has been forbidden; the minimum punishment is confinement in a mental hospital and having one's house, books and all, burnt by "firemen"; and the maximum is immediate death. Authors of books have been sentenced to death at the same time. In the government's, and consequently also the society's opinion, books contain problems and conflicting theories causing people to be anxious, sad, or angry, and are disruptive to society and full of nonsense. That is what the government wants to prevent, because those feelings could cause the country to go unstable and the entire human civilization would possibly collapse. The ideas in books are considered heresy to the point that they are burned and destroyed whenever discovered. According to the authorities, Benjamin Franklin was the first fireman and firemen have always burned books, in stead of putting out fires. The fire brigade's symbol is the salamander, an animal that was thought to thrive in fire. People are expected to become happy by watching TV all day long and taking drugs.

For ten years the protagonist, Guy Montag, works with grim pleasure as a fireman, seemingly committed to the concept that books have nothing to say. The stench of kerosene in his nostrils and the spark in his eyes do little, however, to mask the loneliness he feels coming home to his wife, Mildred, a woman who at all times seeks self-stimulation in various forms, such as a miniature radio jammed in her ear at night or the three wall TVs in the parlor, with their silly shows, lacking any sense or meaning.

At first Guy is proud of his work. He thinks it is a fine job and parrots what he has been told by his superiors. Upon meeting Clarisse McClellan, a 16-year-old girl living in Montag's neighborhood who is considered abnormal because of her compassion and simple interest in the world around her, his way of thinking changes. Unlike Guy, she pays attention to nature, which "normal" people don't care about anymore. She makes him reflect on life and his work. She poses essential questions to him, asking him if he is happy and why things are the way they are. This results in Guy beginning to think about his situation. Clarisse dies early in the story and acts as a catalyst to Guy's transformation. Guy transforms from a loyal servant of the state's ideology to a self-confident human being with his own free will.

Guy's wife Mildred has lost her free will, self-confidence, and the desire to question societal norms, preferring to sit in her parlor and watch TV. She seems to be happy, but early in the book Montag finds her dying from an overdose of sleeping pills. Her suicide attempt belies her outward self confidence. Because she is constantly distracting herself with broadcast entertainment, Montag feels estranged from her.

Montag's descent into radicalism is triggered by the defiant self-immolation of an elderly book hoarder. She refuses to allow the firemen to burn her house down and instead strikes the match herself. Montag is deeply disturbed and upset by the incident. He becomes curious as to why the woman considered books important enough to die for and does much soul-searching. Eventually, he begins to read. He wonders if he could ever do his job again, both because of the old woman's death and because of his new interest in books.

Beatty, the captain of his fire station, comes to Montag's house because of his suspicious absence from work. He explains the history of the fire brigade and why society has become so vehemently opposed to literature. It is implied that Beatty is well-read and already knows that Montag has at least one book. Beatty mentions in passing that once in his career every fireman wants to know what books say, and if a fireman takes a book with him, he has 24 hours to burn it, or the firemen will come and burn it for him.

Montag is unconvinced by Beatty's speech and looks up Faber, a retired English professor who Montag met a year earlier. Montag visits Faber and tells him of his problems. Faber advises Montag against violent protest but also acknowledges his own cowardice in allowing society to become so anti-intellectual. They decide to copy books and plant them in firemen's houses to sabotage the fire brigade. Faber gives Montag a two-way "seashell" (a small audio device resembling an earbud) with which he will be able to listen in on Montag's conversations and advise him on what to say. When Montag arrives at the fire house, he hands Beatty one of his many books. Beatty attempts to test him by quoting from several books, but they are interrupted by a call. When they arrive at the house to be burned, Montag recognizes it as his own.

Beatty forces Montag to prove his loyalty by burning down his own house. When he further antagonizes him and threatens to find Faber, Montag points the flame-thrower at him and burns him alive. As Montag escapes, he knocks out his fellow firemen, and then is attacked by the fire station's Mechanical Hound. The robot is armed with a syringe filled with a lethal dose of narcotics and tracks Montag by scent. He destroys it with the flame-thrower. Another Mechanical Hound is brought in from another district to hunt down Montag. The pursuit is aired live on TV.

After warning Faber to destroy all traces of his presence at Faber's house and flee the city, Montag himself flees for the countryside. The police eventually lose his trail and are forced to kill an insomniac in place of Montag so that the viewing public can enjoy a good show (this is a reference to a short story of Bradbury's "The Pedestrian", which features a similarly insomniac gentleman who walks for pleasure and is detained by the police when he gives this as reason).

Montag, having washed off his scent in a local river, floats downstream and meets a group of tramps — mostly older men — who, to Montag's astonishment, have been expecting him. Every one of them has committed entire books to memory to share with those who would listen until books will be allowed again. They themselves burned the books they read to prevent them from being discovered. Amongst them is Granger, the leader of the group. Montag learns from Granger about the mythical phoenix, which is consumed by fire when it gets old and complacent, only to be born again through the flames.

The city from which Montag fled is soon bombed, along with the other surrounding cities. It is implied that the bombs are of a nuclear variety. Montag and the tramps return to the city to help rebuild their society so that people might once again learn from the books, and learn from the past.

Characters in Fahrenheit 451

• Guy Montag is the protagonist and fireman (see above) whose metamorphosis is illustrated throughout the book and who presents the dystopia through the eyes of a loyal worker to it, a man in conflict about it, and one resolved to be free of it. Bradbury notes in his afterword that Montag is the name of a paper mill. The first name, Guy, comes from Guy Fawkes; who, early in the seventeenth century, was part of a coup which attempted to destroy the British House of Parliment.