Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury

In the dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451,” the characters live in an American city of the future, where books and reading are prohibited. The description of social order in the city where the main characters of “Fahrenheit 451” live will shock the average reader. The name of the American writer is included in the list of the most brilliant dystopian writers in the world. In his books, Ray Bradbury often raises the topic of the future of humanity, inevitable degradation due to the loss of spirituality. The work, as happens with science fiction, predicted the future in some way: from technical details to the moral problem of society.

Characters[edit]

Guy Montag, the main character. He works as a “firefighter” (a specialist in eliminating potential fire hazards in the world of the near future, in fact - book depositories and private libraries). After the death of Clarissa McClellan and the woman who refused to leave the house, he reconsidered his views. After turning right, on the advice of Faber, he joined the “living books”
.
Mildred, Guy's wife. An actress who takes part in TV plays and constantly wears her “shells”. She doesn't share Montag's opinion that books should be preserved, and towards the end she snapped and ratted out her husband over keeping books
.
Clarissa McClellan, a very beautiful young girl, is his dreamy neighbor. Her romantic views are reminiscent of the hippie generation that was just emerging at the time the novel was written. Many consider her crazy because she wanders around the town, asks awkward questions, doesn’t watch TV, is interested in nature, and strives to talk about feelings and thoughts. “I’m seventeen years old and I’m crazy. My uncle claims that one thing inevitably accompanies the other.” The generally short-lived relationship, which did not culminate in any love affair, nevertheless completely changed the life of the main character, who before meeting her was a faithful servant of the existing system, and then she died under car wheels
. The uncle is just like Clarissa, a dissenter, she constantly quotes him.

Faber, an old underground librarian with a German surname. Became Montag's spiritual mentor. Also helped Montag escape from the cyberdog.

Firefighter Beatty, Guy's immediate superior, is a colorful special officer. His speech consists entirely of quotes from various authors and philosophers. The irony is that in a world of mindless consumerism, only firefighters have the right to take and read one
a book for life (where is this indicated?) (The fire chief himself speaks about this,
however, it later turns out that it was all just a test
), and Beatty directly admits that before the burning of houses he looked into many. It must be assumed that the fireman's memory is eidetic. Or, as an option (from unbridled guesses), his memory is simply good, and he burned the works he quoted more than once, and before destruction he once again looked through and re-read some passages.

Suicidal self-confidence - Beatty. He thought that the protagonist was playing a joke on him. At least that's what it looked like. Montag later comes to the conclusion that Beatty purposefully committed suicide at his hands.

The mechanical dog is not a full-fledged character, but rather a property, but at the same time a kind of symbol of the novel. Relentless pursuer. In illustrations for English-language publications, he is often depicted as a terrible iron dog with eight legs (as in the text) and a needle extending from his mouth or nose. When adapting, he is subject to the problem of Tom Bombadil - of all the film adaptations, he is only in the Soviet television play.

Analysis of the novel

The structure and plot of the novel are based on oppositions: light and darkness, vanity and calm.

Sincere and lively Clarissa is contrasted with the dry, static Mildred . The main character's wife even has a face with frozen features. Clarisse's veranda, illuminated by warm light, is completely different from Montag's cold bedroom.

In the novel there is a symbol of a candle as a home, even Clarissa's face seems to Montague illuminated by a candle flame. The candle is also mentioned by a woman who decided to burn along with her books: Guy decided that in other circumstances she could be a friend to him.
Another image present in the novel is a mask. People wear masks and this is considered an integral sign of an aggressive civilization. Guy always smiles politely, and this mask is considered a symbol of the firefighting profession.

The title of the second chapter, “Peso and Sieve,” hints at the impossibility of filling life with meaning. When Montag tries to read the Bible in the subway in this chapter, he cannot make out a word - his entire consciousness is filled with loud music.

At the end of the book, we finally see the bright side of the flame: these are the morning rays of the sun, illuminating a line of people. The educators are led, symbolically, by Montag, who recently burned books.

Plot[edit]

A soured relationship with his wife and dissatisfaction with life against the backdrop of cruelty encountered at work force him to have a different attitude towards his own place in the world. One day he meets Clarissa and begins to understand that there is another life. Meeting Faber completely shakes his faith in the existing order of things. He steals several books while working and reads in secret, which does not go unnoticed by his wife, who first complains to his boss, and after his unsuccessful re-educational work, even makes an official denunciation. Montag’s worldview is also shaped by his meeting with his wife’s friends, who are ardent supporters of abortion, cesarean sections and who are something like images of the “ideal soldier’s wife.” This point is often censored in a variety of countries, however, oddly enough, in the USSR the novel was published without cuts. Then there is the death of Clarissa, who, according to Beatty, was hit by a car, a meeting with a woman who refused to leave the house flooded with kerosene and struck a match to burn herself along with the books, and the appearance of a cyber-monster dog hunting criminals. After these events, Guy withdraws into himself and immerses himself in reading and dialogues with Faber.

One day, arriving on call, he is horrified to learn that he has come to burn down his own house with the books that he brought to himself. After burning the house, Guy burns the fireman and the robot dog, stuns two other firefighters, and with this, everyone crosses the moral horizon of events, effectively finding themselves outlawed. He is being hunted on television, but Faber's help allows him to leave the city unharmed (ironically, destroyed a little later, just a few hours later, by a nuclear bomb). Having traveled by rail, Guy finds a group of marginal travelers, each of whom is essentially a “living book”, literally remembering the contents of one book for posterity, to which he joins.

It is the author’s self-irony about how in the future the authors who have “picked up tops” are authorities for new generations, a kind of “dwarfs on the shoulders of giants” according to Swift.

List and brief description of characters in the novel “Fahrenheit 451”

Guy Montag is the main character. Serves as a firefighter, like his grandfather and father before him. The main duty is to burn books.
Mildred is Guy's wife. Completely caught up in the “modern lifestyle”. She doesn’t work, doesn’t study, she’s only occupied with the “TV wall” and sleeping with shell headphones.
Clarissa is the 17th girl, whose meeting turned the main character’s life upside down. This heroine loves to think, read, have conversations - everything that has long been forgotten by the human world.
Beatty is the boss of the protagonist, the chief of the fire station “in a new way.”
Faber is a professor of philological sciences, a teacher who was fired long ago “as unnecessary.” Consists of a secret organization of a group of people who care about the preservation of the literary heritage.

Paths[edit]

Bonfires made from books are a codifier in art. Once upon a time, firefighters extinguished the fire, now they are starting it...
America will take over the world - America started and won six atomic wars. It was not possible to capture everything - the survivors gained strength to respond. World War III: For the United States, local nuclear wars are commonplace. But the last one, truly global, turned out to be too much for even them.

A fighter for morality is the involuntary duty of the “firemen” of this world. By the way, the book itself was attacked at one time, even to the point of calls for a ban! Ironic, right?

Political correctness:

«	Let us now take the question of various small groups within our civilization. The larger the population, the more such groups there are. And beware of offending any of them - dog or cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, bosses, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, descendants of Chinese, Swedish, Italian, German immigrants, Texans, Brooklynites, Irish, residents of Oregon or Mexico City. The heroes of books, plays, and television programs should not resemble truly existing artists, cartographers, or mechanics. Remember, Montag, the wider the market, the more carefully conflicts must be avoided. All these groups and small groups contemplating their own navel - God forbid they should somehow be offended! Malicious writers, shut your typewriters! <…> People of color do not like the book “Little Black Sambo”. Burn it. White people hate Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn that too. Someone wrote a book about how smoking predisposes you to lung cancer. Tobacco manufacturers are panicking. Burn this book. We need serenity, Montag, calm. Away from everything that gives rise to anxiety. Into the oven!	»
— From Beatty's speech

By the way, magazines are allowed (newspapers seem to be too), as stated in the same scene where Beatty delivers the above monologue. But magazines, roughly speaking, are of three types - erotic, women's and comics, i.e., comparable to radio and television. The fireman's words: “But the reader knew perfectly well what he needed, and, swirling in a whirlwind of fun, he kept the comics for himself. And, of course, erotic magazines.” The permitted literature also includes the fire service regulations. The British film shows Montag reading a newspaper, which is either a comic book or a graphic novel.
Well, yes, but erotic magazines, of course, cannot offend anyone.
As an option from a series of unbridled guesses, there is almost no one to offend. Most people prefer to have fun.

Everything went too much like this. They gave me a loaded flamethrower and ordered me to burn it. He burned the books, the house and someone else.
Speak in quotes - Firemaster Beatty. Every speech is a quotation. The irony is that in a world of mindless consumption, only firefighters have the right to pick up and read one
book in their lifetime, and Beatty directly admits that before burning down houses, he looked into many. One must assume that the fire chief has an eidetic memory... The fire chief is “full of quotes” and does not hide it. In addition, “only fire chiefs still remember the history of firefighting.”

The Decaying West - socialist countries liked how the author criticizes US militarism.

Zomboyashchik is an endless interactive reality show under the code name “Relatives”... The main character’s wife participates in the show, but is unable to explain what the plot of the “play” is - only who has what connections with whom.

History is written by the victors - firefighters have always burned books, and houses have always been fireproof.

Inquisition/state security - “firemen”. They don't put out fires, they start them. The salamander is their symbol. Purification by fire is the main method of dealing with paper books: “Burn to ashes, then burn even the ashes. This is our professional motto."

A scapegoat was a man who liked to go out for a walk early in the morning.

Cyberfauna is a cyber dog created to chase down criminals.

Moral event horizon - Guy has crossed it in the eyes of society, when he killed Fire Chief Beatty and stunned two other firefighters
, thereby becoming a clear example of what books do to people.

Although for Montag himself it’s all around to the right.

Musical tripper - an intraworld example: an advertisement for Tengem toothpaste.

The flamethrower is the main weapon of fighters against literature.

Smoothed garbage dump - the novel takes place in such a garbage dump.

Protestantism is cool!:

«	“She said Ridley.” She said something strange when we entered the house: “Be of good courage, Ridley.” And something else... Something else... - “By the grace of God we will light a candle today in England that I believe they will never extinguish,” said Beatty. ...A man named Latimer said this to a man named Nicholas Ridley when they were being burned alive at the stake for heresy at Oxford on the sixteenth of October, one thousand five hundred and fifty-five.	»
— Latimer and Ridley are Protestants who were burned under Mary I when she restored the Catholic faith in England.

They have simplified and vulgarized - everything that becomes widespread is reduced.

«	- Try to imagine a person in the nineteenth century - dogs, horses, carriages - a slow pace of life. Then the twentieth century. The pace quickens. Books are shrinking in volume. Abridged edition. Retelling. Extract. Don't smear! Hurry to the denouement! “Hurry to the denouement,” Mildred nodded her head. — The works of the classics are reduced to a fifteen-minute radio broadcast. Then even more: one column of text, which you can run through in two minutes, then another: ten to twenty lines for an encyclopedic dictionary. I'm exaggerating, of course. Dictionaries existed for reference. But there were quite a few people whose acquaintance with “Hamlet” - you, Montag, of course, know this title well, but for you, Mrs. Montag, it’s probably just a vaguely familiar sound - so, there were a lot of people whose acquaintance with “Hamlet” was limited to one page of a brief retelling in the collection, which boastfully declared: “Finally you can read all the classics! Keep up with your neighbors." Do you understand? From nursery straight to college and then back to nursery. This is the intellectual standard that has prevailed for the last five centuries or more.	»
— Beatty explains the point to Montag.

Storing forbidden information - books have become such information, the storage of which (regardless of the content) is subject to severe punishment.
Suicide epidemic - the orderlies mention that not only the protagonist’s wife had an incident with drinking the entire bottle of sleeping pills.
A nuclear explosion is scary - the ending puts the pedal to the metal: although from a technical point of view it is absolutely implausible, it hits the nerves epically.

Adaptations[edit]

English-French film of the same name from 1966. Here Julie Christie played Clarissa and Linda. The authors wanted to show some kind of contrast between them, but Bradbury did not like this idea. Informer - boxes for denunciations are installed in special places. Montag and Clarisse are watching a man trying to denounce him. At the same time, they think about what motivates him: love for the law or the desire to harm someone.
To wrap things up in the adaptation - Montag is a more experienced fireman (major - if not, correct him), Clarissa and her family are quite active underground fighters.
Cool granny is an old lady who burned herself and her books. Here she is an active underground worker.
For the sake of a trick, the opening credits do not appear on the screen in the form of inscriptions, but are read in the voice of the announcer.
To weaken in adaptation is not entirely true; their responsibilities have “weakened” somewhat. Here firefighters do not so much burn houses as find books and demonstratively destroy them. At least in apartment buildings (naturally, if one person in the house is a criminal from the point of view of the regime, do not spoil the lives of the neighbors - even if the house is fireproof, it does not mean that the flame will not damage something neighborly, and we must not forget about the smoke) . But they can burn down a private house and not wince. On the other hand, firefighters can search any passerby at any time in case he is hiding something prohibited. In the book, the setting was in the aesthetics of the “white picket fence” - pedal to the metal and at the same time deconstruction: everyone lives in private houses, but they only think about what they can think about. Therefore, problems with residents of apartment buildings did not appear in the book.

Read a book about yourself - among the burning books you can see the works of Tolstoy, Schopenhauer, Nabokov. Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles are burning... and the novel 451 itself. And one of the underground workers learned The Martian Chronicles.

Teleplay “The World of Ray Bradbury” (1978) - from the 14th minute a few words about the novel, then N. Belokhvostikova reads a fragment.

Soviet television play “The Sign of the Salamander” from the series “This Fantastic World”, a crossover with the story of E. Ludwig “The Little Criminal”

American film of the same name 2021

Cyberpunk - looks cyberpunk in appearance. Information society in full. The media broadcasts from every iron.

References and quotes - some scenes quote similar ones from the 1966 film. The scene with the self-immolation of the old woman.

Change race in adaptation - G. Montag is African American here.

To wrap things up in the adaptation - Montag again. Here he is practically a student, partner and replacement of Fire Chief Beatty. Until a certain point...

The problem with Tom Bombadil is that, as in the Soviet television play, Montag basically does not have a wife. And the mechanical dog only appears in the Soviet television play, albeit sporadically.

Non-person - additional punishment for those guilty - erasure from all databases. In fact, deprivation of all rights and property.

Good, but bad - the acting is at least not bad, and the picture doesn’t hurt the eyes... if it weren’t for the DAMN EMOJI on the screens and what “omnis” turned out to be. And the leaking of the “living books” and Montag’s sudden love affair with Clarissa didn’t make it any better.

In addition, people who sympathize with the old order and keep books are given the name “Ugli”. Firefighters burn not only books with houses, but also other media with prohibited information. Firefighters are also involved in detaining violators instead of the police (in the novel, the police usually arrested a person, and the firefighters burned down an already empty house).

Performance “Symphony of Fire” Theater “Iuventa” (St. Petersburg)

A performance of the same name in two parts of the “Et cetera” theater.

Nameless Hero - Some characters, not exactly minor ones, have lost their names. See in credits. Moreover, for some, the name does not appear anywhere. Or named once or twice, as with Clarissa.

Cool leather outfit - the uniform of firefighters.

Off-Screen Moment of Cool - A lot happens behind the scenes.

The ghost character is a mechanical dog.

Deliberately bad - TV shows on the “walls”

Barefoot weirdo are some of the book lovers. In particular Clarissa and the Old Woman (who burned herself with the books) and some of the pilgrims.

The informer is behind the scenes. Beatty receives denunciations on paper. Among them is a “progressive” child, whom his “retrograde” parents force him to read and retell.

Eclecticism - clearly “Halloween” elements are introduced into the Bradbury setting. Including references to domestic realities.

Homage - R. Bradbury and his books, including warning novels, are mentioned a couple of times.

Good-natured fat man - Mildred (wife of G. Montega). A typical caricature housewife with a white picket fence aesthetic. But her denunciation of her husband, from the point of view of our morality, transfers her to the category of disgusting fat people, although according to the morality of those times it was a good deed. And not only the one of that time. Although in some cases it is possible to convey some options in the spirit, but not immediately.

A failed (possibly in the process of production) fan film by A. Tazhkenov.

Not really an adaptation, but a cartoon: Why should you read Fahrenheit 451?

Comic by Tim Hamilton.