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Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451. By Ray Bradbury. The Nifty Fifties. Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1953 about an America in the distant future, but in the following decades, most of the story started to come true.

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Fahrenheit 451

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  1. Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

  2. The Nifty Fifties • Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1953 about an America in the distant future, but in the following decades, most of the story started to come true. • Television was commercially available for the first time in 1949. In 1953, hardly anybody in America seemed to have a television; kids would still get together to watch at the one house in the neighborhood with a TV. • By 1954, there was already one television for every five human beings in the nation. • No one could really know what television would become for Americans, but Bradbury clearly had an intuition.

  3. What TV created was the instantly recognizable image. Because the small screen could not easily accommodate the casts of thousands from the movies, TV shows favored pictures of one or two people at a time, on the news, in comedy, in game shows, in mysteries and drama, and in endless strings of commercial messages. • Those fuzzy images have been (and are) flashed thousands of times a day to millions of viewers who have learned toothpaste jingles by heart before they could read. • People were given preconceived pictures of how news anchors should talk, how cowboys, detectives, and doctors should behave, and how housewives and grandpas and bus drivers should think.

  4. Viewers learned how to know the characters they saw on TV the way readers once learned to follow the stories of Sherlock Holmes or Odysseus. • Thus, unlike radio, which still elicits nostalgia, television quickly came to be perceived as “a vast wasteland” programmed for manipulation and aimed at the lowest common denominator. • The driving force behind American television is not the show itself, but the sponsor who finances the show. Consequently, the essential TV message is always “buy”– whether the product is soap or a presidential candidate.

  5. Science Fiction • Commentators have yet to agree on a definition of science fiction, possible because technology is ever-changing. • The roots go back to the 1700s with Jonathan Swift’s, Gulliver’s Travels, with weirdly different forms of humanity and an island that floated in midair. • Mary Shelley provided readers with their first famous mad scientist in Frankenstein in 1818. • In the late 1800s H.G. Wells wrote The Time Machine and Jules Verne wrote Twenty Leagues Under the Sea, both about technologically impossible voyages. • Widespread recognition of science fiction spread most noticeably after the U.S.S.R. launched sputnik in 1957.

  6. Components of Science Fiction • A setting in the future or unearthly place • “impossible” technology in advance of current reality • Strange creatures, human or not • Social criticism • Always determine which components are present (all four are present in the novel); more importantly, ask which factors are most important

  7. Structure • The story has three named parts, but there are dozens of other parts indicated by double spaces ( We will number these parts so we can refer to them easily). • Part One, “The Hearth and the Salamander,” contains nineteen sections. • Part Two, “The Sieve and the Sand,” contains six sections. • Part Three, “Burning Bright,” contains twelve sections.

  8. The Key Social Criticism • Bradbury believed that America was turning away from books, freedom of speech, and a thoughtful citizenry, and turning toward TV, censorship, and mindless public acceptance of lies and government repression.

  9. Literary Devices • A clearly developing main character • Strong setting and tone • Clearly stated theme • Symbols • Irony • Biblical and literary allusions

  10. Polemic • Variants of the word, each different in type and degree, include sermon, speech, lecture, complaint, jeremiad, diatribe, criticism, dispute, attack, and apologia. • Remember that Bradbury wasANGRYwhen he wrote this book.

  11. Anticommunism and the McCarthy Era • In 1953 Senator Joseph McCarthy (R) of Wisconsin claimed that the government had gone “soft” on Communism and that numerous Communists and Communist-sympathizers had infiltrated all parts of the American government. • From about 1951-1953, McCarthy’s power seemed second only to the power of the president.

  12. Ramifications • McCarthy’s influence reached beyond the controversy over government officials, causing fear, damaged reputations, and ruined careers, notably in branches of the arts; this was particularly true for authors. Writer after writer was called before the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee and questioned about his or her political beliefs; this legislative committee threatened people with jail (for contempt of Congress) for refusing to “name names.” Even as late as 1956, playwright Arthur Miller was called before the HUAC.

  13. The Protagonist • Guy Montag, a book-burning “fireman”, must choose between two different worlds. • One world is represented by his wife, Mildred. • The other world is represented by a teenager named Clarisse McClellan.

  14. Does History Repeat Itself? • As you make your way through the text, consider how relevant the issues of 1953 are today.

  15. Do we ban books? • North Dakota, 1973 (see article)

  16. Do we burn books? • Historically, who do we associate with book-burnings?

  17. Do we censor? • What is usually the motive behind censorship?

  18. Do we discourage nonconformity? • Consider nonconformity through the ages. New frontier?

  19. How can you contribute to a thoughtful, conscious society? • Don’t let history repeat itself.

  20. Minstrel Manby Langston Hughes • Because my mouthIs wide with laughterAnd my throatIs deep with song, You do not think I suffer afterI have held my painSo long?Because my mouth Is wide with laughter, You do not hearMy inner cry? Because my feetAre gay with dancing, You do not know I die?

  21. Phoenix

  22. A phoenix is a mythical bird that is a fire spirit with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet (or purple, blue, and green according to some legends). It has a 500 to 1,000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self.

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