Fahrenheit 451 - very briefly

If you read the book, and just need to revise, skip to themes and symbols.

Full title: Fahrenheit 451

Published: 1953

Genre: Dystopian science fiction novel

Setting: an unnamed American city in the future

Point of view: third person limited narration since the author overviews Montag's perspective of the events.

Plot summary

Guy Montag is a fireman who believes he is content in his job, which, in the oppressive future American society depicted in Fahrenheit 451, consists of burning books and the possessions of book owners. However, his discontent, secret even from himself, becomes clear after he meets Clarisse McClellan, a teenage girl and his new neighbour, who engages in such outlandish behaviour as walking instead of driving and having conversations. She asks him if he's happy. When he returns home to find that his wife, Mildred, has taken a bottle of sleeping pills and it about to die, he realizes he is unhappy. Plumbers bring a snake-like robot that saves Mildred, but the next day she has no memory of her suicide attempt. She sits in the parlour, engrossed in its three full walls of interactive TV.

Back at the fire station, Montag is threatened by the Mechanical Hound, a robotic hunter that can be programmed to track any scent. Captain Beatty tells him not to worry—unless, Beatty adds jokingly, Montag has a guilty conscience. For the next week, Montag continues to talk with Clarisse and examine his own life. One day, while the radio in the fire station mentions that war is imminent, Montag asks Beatty if there was a time when firemen prevented fires instead of starting them. The alarm rings, and the firemen all head to the house of an elderly woman whose neighbour has turned her in. The woman refuses to leave her house as they douse it in kerosene. She lights a match herself and burns along with the house.

In bed that night, Montag asks Mildred—who, as usual, is zoning out listening to her earbud radio—where they met. Neither of them can remember. Mildred tells Montag that Clarisse has been killed. Haunted by the vision of the old woman's death and the news of Clarisse's death, Montag doesn't go to work the next day. Beatty visits him at home and delivers a long lecture on the history of censorship, the development of mass media, the dumbing down of culture, the rise of instant gratification, and the role of firemen as society's "official censors, judges, and executors." Beatty says it's okay for a fireman to keep a book for 24 hours out of natural curiosity, so long as he turns it in the next day. When Beatty leaves, Montag shows Mildred twenty books, including a Bible, that he's been hiding in the house. He feels that their lives are falling apart and that the world doesn't make sense, and he hopes some answers might be found in the books. Montag and Mildred try to read the books.

But reading is not easy when you have so little practice. Mildred soon gives up and insists that Montag get rid of the books so that they can resume their lives. Montag, however, remembers a retired English professor named Faber, whom he met a year ago and who might be able to help. On the subway trip to the man's house, Montag tries to read and memorize passages from the Bible he's brought with him but can not do so because of the Dentifrice dentist commercial. At first, Faber is frightened of Montag but eventually agrees to help Montag in a scheme to undermine the firemen. They agree to communicate through a tiny two-way radio placed in Montag's ear. When Montag returns home, his wife's friends are over watching TV. Montag loses his cool. He forces the women to listen to him read a poem by Matthew Arnold from one of his secret books. They leave, greatly upset. When Montag goes to work, Beatty mocks him with contradictory quotations drawn from famous books, which point out that books are useless, elitist, and confusing. Montag hands over a book to Beatty and is forgiven. Beatty throws the book in the furnace without even looking at it. Suddenly, an alarm comes in. The firemen rush to their truck and head out to the address given. It's Montag's house.

As they arrive, Mildred leaves the house and ducks into a taxi. She is the one who called in the alarm. Beatty forces Montag to burn his house with a flamethrower and then tells him he's arrested. Beatty also discovers the two-way radio and says he'll trace it to its source, then taunts Montag until Montag kills him with the flamethrower.

Now a fugitive and the object of a massive, televised manhunt, Montag visits Faber, then make it to the river a few steps ahead of the Mechanical Hound. He floats downstream to safety. Along some abandoned railroad tracks in the countryside, Montag finds a group of old men, dust-tjackets Faber told him about — outcasts from society who were formerly academics and theologians. They and others like them have memorized thousands of books and are surviving on the margins of society, waiting for a time when the world becomes interested in reading again. Montag can remember parts of the Book of Ecclesiastes, so he has something to contribute.

Early the following day, enemy bombers fly overhead toward the city. The war begins and ends almost in an instant. The city is reduced to powder. Montag mourns for Mildred and their empty life together. He is finally able to remember where they met — Chicago. With Montag leading, the men head upriver toward the city to help the survivors rebuild amid the ashes.

Characters

Montag

A fireman and the book's protagonist. As the novel opens, Montag takes pride in burning books and the homes of people who illegally own books. After meeting Clarisse McClellan, however, he begins to face his growing dissatisfaction with his life, job, marriage, and the pleasure-seeking, unthinking culture in which he lives. He has been secretly hoarding books without actually reading them. After Clarisse's death, he eventually begins to read the books without understanding their meaning at first. From then on, there's no turning back, and Montag begins acting against his oppressive society, becoming a conscious individual.

Captain Beatty

Montag's boss at the fire station. Beatty is a complex character. He has committed to memorising many passages of classic literature. He can quote them at will, yet he is devoted to destroying intellectual pursuits, artistic efforts, and individual thought as a fire captain. Bradbury uses Beatty to explain how mid-20th-century America becomes the joy-seeking, irresponsible, unemotional, and intellectually repressive future world depicted in Fahrenheit 451. Beatty claims he, like Montag, once became interested in books but now endorses instant gratification. Yet Beatty uses his extensive learning to push Montag past the breaking point and goad Montag into killing him. After Montag kills Beatty, Montag becomes convinced that Beatty wants to die (though it's never clear if this is true). Beatty is an intellectual wearing the uniform of the intellectual's worst enemy. Perhaps the contradiction is too much for him in the end.

Mildred Montag

Montag's wife. She drowns her unhappiness with pills, a constant barrage of media, fast driving, and other mindless distractions. The day after attempting suicide, she has no memory of the event. She and Montag have lost whatever connection they once had. Mildred is a hollow person — she doesn't seem to have a real connection to anyone. Instead, she's devoted to her interactive TV shows. After Montag brings books home and reads poetry to her friends, she betrays him to the authorities to preserve her life of instant gratification and comfort.

Faber

A former English professor describes himself as a coward because he did not act to try to change the direction in which society was headed. Faber is the only person in the city with consciousness and understanding of knowledge and books. He uses a two-way radio to direct Montag through situations where he is too frightened to place himself. He provides a counterpoint to Beatty's arguments against literature and thought.

Clarisse McClellan

Montag's teenage neighbour. She is unlike anyone Montag has met before. She has no interest in the violent, thrill-seeking pastimes of her peers. Clarisse prefers to walk, engage in conversation, observe the natural world, and observe people. Her questioning, the free spirit, start Montag thinking about his life and place in society.

Granger

One of the scholar-outcasts Montag meets on the railroad tracks in the countryside. Unlike Faber, Granger has dared to act on his convictions and leave civilization. He and his comrades memorize works of literature, waiting for the day when books will no longer be banned, and humanity is ready to learn from its past.

Themes

Mass-media and consumerism (totalitarism and brainwashing)

Much of Fahrenheit 451 is devoted to depicting a future United States society bombarded with messages and imagery by an omnipresent mass media. Instead of the small black-and-white TV screens common in American households in 1953 (the year of the book's publication), the characters in the novel live their lives in rooms with entire walls that act as televisions. These TVs show serial dramas in which the viewer's name is woven into the program, and the viewer can interact with fictional characters called "the relatives" or "the family." Scenes change rapidly, and images flash quickly in bright colours designed to produce distraction and fascination. This way, society leaves a traditional family, where all their time is spent with digital devices. Moreover, a complete dedication to those allows the government to use the news for brainwashing.

Furthermore, Mildred is obsessed with getting the fourth TV wall. Her desire to close herself to the real world and her husband through the material items she can buy portrays her as a hollow person and reflects the problems with the entire society.

When not in their interactive TV rooms, many characters, including Guy Montag's wife Mildred, spend much of their time with "Seashell ear thimbles" in their ears — miniature radio receivers that play constant broadcasts of news, advertisements, and music, drowning out the real sounds of the world. Moreover, the seashells are used only to receive the sound and not transmit it: you can not send a message with them.

Throughout the novel, Bradbury portrays mass media as a veil that obscures real experience and interferes with the characters' ability to think deeply about their lives and societal issues. Bradbury isn't suggesting that media other than books couldn't be enriching and fulfilling. As Faber tells Montag, "It isn't books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books.... The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not." In an interview marking the fiftieth anniversary of the novel's publication, Bradbury indicated that some of his fears about mass media had been realized. "We bombard people with sensation," he said, "That substitutes for thinking."

Censorship

Books are banned in the society depicted in Fahrenheit 451. When found, they're burned, along with the homes of the books' owners. But it's important to remember that in the world of this novel, the suppression of books began as self-censorship. As Beatty explains to Montag, people didn't stop reading books because a tyrannical government forced them to stop. They stopped reading books gradually as the culture around them grew faster, shallower, intellectually blander and centred around minor thrills and instant gratification. In such a culture, books became shorter, magazine and newspaper articles became simpler, cartoon pictures and television became more prevalent, and entertainment replaced reflection and debate.

Another factor contributing to the growth of censorship in Fahrenheit 451 is minorities and what we might call "special interest groups." To avoid offending every imaginable group and sub-group — whether organized around ethnicity, religion, profession, geography, or affinity — every trace of controversy slowly vanished from public discourse, and magazines became "a nice blend of vanilla tapioca." In time, the word "intellectual" became a swear word, and books became a dangerous means to lord or her knowledge and learn over someone else. Books, and the critical thinking they encouraged, became seen as a direct threat to equality. By making widespread censorship a phenomenon that emerges from the culture itself — and not one imposed from above by the government — Bradbury is expressing a concern that the power of mass media can ultimately suppress free speech as thoroughly as any totalitarian regime.

Conformity vs individualism

Pleasure-seeking and distraction are the hallmarks of the culture in which Montag lives. Although these may sound like a very self-serving set of values, the culture does not celebrate or even tolerates a broad range of self-expression. Hedonism and mindless entertainment are the norms, and so long as the people in the society of Fahrenheit 451 stick to movies and sports and racing their cars, pursuits that require little individual thought, they're left alone by society.

However, whenever individuals start to question the purpose of such a life, and begin to look for answers in books or the natural world and express misgivings, they become threats. Their questions and actions might cause others to face the difficult questions that their culture is designed to distract them from. For that reason, in the society of Fahrenheit 451 people who express their individuality find themselves social outcasts at best, and at worst in real danger.

Clarisse McClellan represents free thought and individuality. She's unlike anyone else Montag knows. She has little interest in the thrill-seeking of her peers. She'd rather talk, observe the natural world firsthand, and ask questions. She soon disappears (and is probably killed). Fahrenheit 451's society is set up to snuff out individuality — characters who go against the general social conformity (Clarisse, Faber, Granger, and Montag) do so at great risk.

Distraction vs Happiness

Why has the society of Fahrenheit 451 become so shallow, indifferent, and conforming? Why do people drive so fast, keep Seashell ear thimbles in their ears, and spend all day in front of room-sized, four-walled TV programs? According to Beatty, constant motion and titillation help people suppress their sadness and avoid any intense emotions or difficult thoughts and experiences. The people of Fahrenheit 451 must come to equate this motion, fun, and distraction with happiness. To sum up, the government has created a system of fully uncurious and docile people that are not interested in anything and repeat the same meaningless actions while convinced that it is fun.

However, Fahrenheit 451 makes the case that engaging with difficult and uncomfortable thoughts and experiences is the only route to true happiness. Only by being uncomfortable or experiencing new or awkward things can people achieve a real and meaningful engagement with the world and each other. The people in the novel who lack such engagement, such as Mildred, feel profound despair, which makes them more determined to distract themselves by watching more TV, overdosing on sleeping pills, or letting technicians use a specialized machine to suck away their sadness. The result is a vicious cycle in which people are terrified to expose themselves to any emotion or difficulty because doing so will force them to face their pent-up despair. In reality, their avoidance of those thoughts and feelings creates their despair. Only after he acknowledges his unhappiness can Montag decide to find Faber and resist his society's oppressive "happiness" and thought suppression that he once enforced as a fireman.

Action vs inaction

Many societies, including Germany, became dangerous and intolerant in the years up to and before World War II. Even so, their citizens were afraid to speak out against these changes. Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953, just a few years after WWII ended, and is very concerned with taking action versus standing by while society falters. In particular, the novel shows how Montag learns to take action, unlike Faber, who is too cowardly to act. At the same time, Faber does help teach Montag the difference between reckless and intelligent action so that by the end of the novel, Montag is ready to act in a constructive rather than destructive way.

Symbols

Fire

Fire is an exciting symbol in Fahrenheit 451 because it symbolizes two things. Fire symbolises destruction through the firemen, who burn books and wear the number "451" on their helmets. (451°F is the temperature at which paper and books burn.) Yet at the same time, Clarisse reminds Montag of candlelight, and so fire, when controlled, symbolizes the flickering of self-awareness and knowledge.

Therefore, the two meanings of the fire are juxtaposed in the book. Destructive fire is used in every city house when people burn stuff for "fun", while the dust-jackets use it for cooking food and creating warmth and a home for them. Moreover, Montag notices the warmth and the relief that fire gives him only when he meets Granger and other men in the forest.

The Phoenix

The mythologies of many Mediterranean cultures include the story of the phoenix, a bird that is consumed by flames but then rises from the ashes. The phoenix symbolises renewal, for life follows death in a cleansing fire. After the city is reduced to ashes by bombers in Fahrenheit 451, Granger directly compares human beings and the phoenix story. Both destroy themselves in the fire. Both start again amid the ashes. If people keep books — which preserve the past and allow people to learn the lessons of prior tragedies — Granger hopes that humanity will remember the suffering caused by the destruction and avoid destroying itself in the future.

The hearth and the salamander

"The Hearth and the Salamander" is the title of the first section of Fahrenheit 451. Both hearths and salamanders are associated with fire. Hearths (fireplaces) are traditionally the centre of the home and the source of warmth. The firemen wear salamander imagery on their uniforms and call their fire truck a "salamander" because salamanders were once believed to live in the fire without being consumed.

The sieve and the sand

"The Sieve and the Sand" is the title of the second section of Fahrenheit 451. The title refers to Montag's childhood memory of trying to fill a sieve with sand. He's reminded of this episode while trying to read the Bible on the subway. While he's trying to memorize what he's reading, an announcement for toothpaste keeps derailing him. To Montag, the sand represents the knowledge he seeks—something of material importance—and the sieve represents his mind trying to grasp and retain this knowledge.