Fahrenheit 451



         


Fahrenheit 451 (1953) is a dystopian science fiction novel by Ray Bradbury. It is set in a world where books are banned and critical thought is discouraged; the central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this case, means "book burner"). 451 degrees Fahrenheit is stated as the temperature at which paper ignites and begins to burn. See fire point.

[Top]

Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

After meeting a girl named Clarisse McClellan, Montag, a fireman who sets fire to houses possessing contraband books, starts questioning the world he lives in. The plot is driven by Montag's rejection of the mindless world which he inhabits. He begins to collect books, to the horror of his wife, Mildred, whose only interest in life is the viewing of vacuous television shows (a parody of 1950's programming). When ordered to put fire to his house, he does so before turning his flamethrower on Beatty, his fire chief. With the aid of Faber, a well-educated but timid old man, he eludes a police search and escapes the Mechanical Hound, a robotic tracking device. Montag flees into the forest, where he joins a wandering band of intellectual rebels, who have committed books to memory. The book ends as he watches "the city" destroyed by an atomic bomb.

[Top]

Analysis

Although given the time of the book's publication, its theme brings to mind the repression of intellectual freedom that characterised the McCarthy Era, Bradbury's critique of the censorial tendency also encompasses acts motivated by radical egalitarianism and what would today be called political correctness.

The book also deals with apathy toward and ignorance regarding one's surroundings and a devotion to the law of the sort characterized for many by Nazi Germany. Montag lived his life as a fireman without thinking about his actions: to him, books were banned and he was only enforcing the law. Montag is awoken initially to the possibility that the law might be wrong through encounters with the eccentric girl named Clarisse, and by watching a woman burn with her books. Montag then began to wonder what the books could contain that would make some give their lives for them and others want to destroy them. This drives him to an eventual meeting with the Fahrenheit 451's wise man Faber. Montag then realizes that all this time he had sought to destroy that which he didn't understand.

[Top]

Film and radio versions

The book, with some plot changes, was made into a film in 1966 by François Truffaut, with Oskar Werner as Montag. There are plans for a remake in 2005, directed by Frank Darabont.

In addition to the movie, there have been at least two BBC Radio 4 dramatisations, both of which follow the book very closely.

[Top]

Influence on popular culture

The title of Bradbury's book has become a well-known byword amongst those who oppose censorship, in much the way George Orwell's 1984 has (although not to the same extent). As such, it has been alluded to in dozens of later contexts, amongst them the ACLU's 1997 whitepaper Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? and Michael Moore's 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11.

See also: Cinema of France, List of French language films

[Top]

ISBNs

[Top]




  View Live Article   This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License