Fahrenheit 451

1. Fahrenheit 451 Part 1

2. Discuss • Without the freedom to seek truth, it is impossible to find true fulfillment. This concept is expressed through the clear contrast between the three major characters. • 1. Mildred • 2. Clarisse • 3. Montag

3. Discuss • Bradbury Appears to give warning to what might be in store for a society that allows anti-intellectualism to ferment and technology to take over. Written soon after the close of WWII, ‘The Hearth and the Salamander’, the opening of Fahrenheit 451, provides a glimpse of how the world might have developed had Hitler won.

4. 451 • 451 degrees is the temperature at which paper and books burn

5. The Book • The symbol of “the book”, represents knowledge and awareness, but are illegal. Montag finds himself drawn to them, and wonders what drives book owners, such as the old woman, to burn herself among her sacred possessions rather than leave them behind. • In the opening paragraph, Bradbury likens burning book pages to pigeon wings. This early allusion to birds and flight speaks to the ability of books to be like freedom.

6. The Hearth • The hearth is where fire is built and burns strongest.

7. The Salamander • In contrast, the salamander is a lizard said to survive in flames, and thus alludes to fire’s inability to crush free thought. • Montag personifies the salamander, surrounded in flames, yet fighting against censorship.

8. Fire • Fire represents purification as it is used to rid society of that which is undesirable. • Captain Beatty mentions the standard practice of immediately cremating the dead so society is not burdened with decaying bodies or memorials and the grief associated with them. • Fire is a form of oppression ---a means of subduing the knowledge of books.

9. Fire • Fire represents awareness and memory. Upon greeting the fireman, the old woman who later burns to death among her books as a martyr for free thought, quotes Bishop Hugh Latimer, who was burned for heresy in the 16th century, saying, “….we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out!”

10. Water • Water, the opposing force to fire, takes on meaning as a metaphor for escape. Mildred, ever in need for escape from the opportunity to think, uses her seashell radio to occupy her brain at night, as “an electronic ocean of sound….coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind….Every night the waves come in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swam that sea.”

11. Water • After questioning Clarisse about her motivation to walk in the rain and catch drops in her mouth, Montag begins to question himself, his career, and his marriage. While he does so, Montag tilts his head back, and for the first time, drinks in the raindrops.

12. The intruding eye of oppression monitors the people who live in Montag’s dystopia • 1. The tool the technicians use to pump Mildred's stomach looks like a mechanical one-eyed snake • 2. The mechanical hound’s constant observation • 3. Clarisse innocently reminds Montag that ‘there’s a man in the moon.”