- Summary
- Bradbury
- 451 degrees Fahrenheit
In an American city of the future lived fireman Guy Montag. The team in which thirty-year-old Guy served did not put out fires. She had other duties: firefighters burned books and the houses in which they were stored. This was the order in the city. During ten years of service, Guy never thought about the reason for the hatred of books among people living nearby. A chance meeting with a young girl, Clarissa, radically changed his attitude towards the world around him. The girl was very different from her peers, who were only interested in endless TV series, fun in the park and, at best, playing sports. Guy was especially struck by her love for the surrounding nature. This acquaintance made Guy take a different look at his existence.
Montag was married, but over the many years of living together with his wife Mildred, he realized that everyone in their family lives on their own. The wife loved television series, and other life did not interest her, she did not want children either.
At work, his colleagues were unhappy with his questions about the firefighters’ previous activities. Guy was especially struck by the case of a woman who burned down in her own house, not wanting to part with her favorite books. The next day, Montag could not go to work, the memories of yesterday’s incident, as well as the message about Clarissa’s death under the wheels of a car, were so difficult. But the fire chief decided to restore order among his subordinates. He came to Guy’s house and gave him an edifying lecture about how not to try to stand out from the crowd. According to him, in order to avoid envy and resentment, people should be the same in everything. Therefore, it is necessary to fight against books that can awaken the human mind and force people to fight against the existing model of society.
Guy silently listened to his boss's moralizing, but it was too late to change anything. His house already contained books rescued from burned houses. Guy even suggested that his wife and her friends read them. He also met Professor Faber, who had long been suspected of dissent.
The wife, and earlier her friends, reported on Guy, and the firefighters, among whom was Montag himself, burned his house. During this operation, Guy learned that his boss had been listening in and recording his conversations with the professor. To save his friend, Montag aimed a flamethrower at his boss and his team.
Guy was declared a state criminal and had to flee the city. With Faber's help, he found people who, in their own way, are fighting modern barbarism in the country. Each of them memorized some work, firmly believing that their knowledge might be needed by society in the future.
Alien planes appeared over the city where Guy had previously lived, and enemy bombers wiped it off the face of the earth.
The story teaches you to appreciate books that help you remain human in any situation.
A detailed retelling of Fahrenheit 451
The novel takes place in an alternative future. End of the twentieth century. In America, a regime of total control over people's lives is being established. The rhythm of life is rapidly increasing. A person has no time to be distracted, he is constantly on the move, constantly busy. This is the easiest way for people to be controlled; they have no time to think for themselves and have no choice but to trust the state.
Books have been declared the main enemy of humanity. Anyone who reads begins to think and analyze independently, which is absolutely unacceptable for the state. Firefighters guard public order. This is an honorable and responsible profession. They wear beautiful costumes with a phoenix on the front and a salamander on the back. Now they do not put out fires; on the contrary, they identify houses in which books are stored and burn them along with the house.
The hero of the novel, Montag, is a fireman. His life is measured and flows according to plan. During the day he does his job and does it well, which earns him the approval of his superiors. The fireman who leads Montag's squad sets him apart from the rest of the firefighters. Montag's wife, Mildred, is waiting at home. She is busy watching television series all day long. This activity makes up her life. Their house has a special room equipped with huge TV screens that occupy three walls. Mildred persuades her husband to buy a fourth screen so that she can fully immerse herself in the world of the TV show. An empty fourth wall makes her unhappy and does nothing to differentiate her from her neighbors.
There are no children in Montag's family because Mildred insisted on their absence. The spouses exist on their own, essentially stuck inside the monotonous algorithm that their lives have become. This is only confirmed by the case when Montag, returning from service, found his wife unconscious. It turned out that she had automatically taken too many sleeping pills. However, in modern society this problem is solved very quickly. It is enough to call an ambulance team; using the latest equipment, they will put any patient in order.
The measured pace of the hero's life changes due to an accidental collision with a young girl, Clarissa McLelland. She immediately attracts his attention with her atypicality. Typically, young people prefer to spend their time having fun on attractions or racing cars. Clarissa seemed completely different to Montag, calm, even distant, dreamy. Having struck up a conversation with the girl, Montag learns that she likes to admire nature and simply observe life around her, she does not consider it necessary to constantly rush somewhere and spends a lot of time thinking.
Clarissa's question about whether he is happy confuses Montag. Previously, he was only in the monotonous routine of his life and never thought about it. Reflections on life make him doubt its correctness. An incident at work has an even greater impact on Montag's condition. Arriving once again on call, firefighters discover the woman has an extensive library. However, she refuses to obey and leave the house, but prefers to die with her favorite works.
This incident and constant fleeting meetings and conversations with Clarissa make Montag realize that his usual way of life is disgusting to him. He starts acting strange. He surprises his colleagues with his memories of how firefighters used to put out fires, not start them. He begins to little by little steal books during calls and show sympathy for the criminals who read.
Books open up a new world for Montag. Unable to bear his old life any longer, he tries to get his wife to join him in reading. She is not at all interested in this, because a new project has been launched on television. Viewers were sent copies of the script and asked to fill them out as they saw fit. Montag gives up and decides to look for other like-minded people.
Meanwhile, the fire chief visits him. People at work have long suspected that something is wrong with Montag. So the boss came to reason with him. The fireman reminds him that the modern rhythm of life obliges everyone to live quickly and not waste a lot of time on anything. For a happy life, everyone must be the same, not free and equal, but as similar as two peas in a pod. Only identity protects everyone from the elevation of individuals and, accordingly, the humiliation of others. In such conditions, a book is the worst weapon. It forces you to think, to have your own opinion, so books should be completely destroyed. Montag understands what this visit really means, but he can no longer stop.
The next morning he decides not to go to work due to illness. This act greatly irritates Montag's wife, since it does not correspond to the usual daily routine. At the same time, Mildred tells her husband that their neighbor Clarissa was recently hit by a car and her parents moved out.
This incident forces the hero to more actively look for those who keep the books. Montag meets Professor Faber. At first he is afraid and does not believe Montag, since he is a fireman and can specifically look for readers. However, having believed him, the professor reveals his plans to resume printing. According to the professor, the impending military conflict will again turn citizens to reading. America managed to win two previous wars with the help of atomic weapons. The world simply cannot bear another military catastrophe. As a parting gift, Professor Faber gives Montag a small radio receiver that is inserted into his ear. In this way they can quietly keep in touch with each other.
At home, Montag discovers that Mildred's friends have come to see her. The women are so enthusiastic about discussing the series and their contributions to its creation that they drive Montag crazy. Having lost his temper, he tries to prove to them that the only thing that means anything in this world is books. The evening ends in a big fight. Montag decides to return to work.
The working day begins as usual. Firefighters are preparing to respond to a call. However, Montag discovers that they have arrived at his home. Enraged by the incident last night, Mildred ratted out her husband. As it turned out, she was not the first. Her friends reported about the books in their house a little earlier. Realizing that he has been discovered, Montag does not resist and gives the books to the fire chief himself. He also takes part in the burning of books and his own house.
Montag's boss notices the radio, suspecting it could lead to other criminals. Not wanting to put Professor Faber at risk, the hero burns the fire chief and the rest of the squad. Now Montag becomes a particularly dangerous criminal.
To catch such criminals, the latest technological development “mechanical dog” is used. It is impossible to hide from him. The chase is broadcast live on television so that everyone can watch it.
Montag successfully hides from the dog for some time. The chase drags on. In order not to disturb the audience once again and to convince them of the inevitability of justice, the dog kills a random passer-by, presenting him as a criminal. At the same time, the war begins. Millions of soldiers are mobilized and sent to the battlefields. This helps Montag buy a little time to hide from the state, which is still busy with more important matters.
Remembering Professor Faber's recommendations, the hero leaves the city for the forest in search of help. After some time, he manages to find a camp of like-minded people. Montag learns that throughout the country, reading people have united in spiritual opposition. They found a way to convey as much knowledge as possible to posterity. Every person memorizes a book or a chapter of it. Thus, he becomes a physical carrier of valuable knowledge. In the evenings they gather around the fire and listen to the works they have learned. They wait and hope that the time will come when others will need their knowledge. At this time, enemy troops come close to the city and wipe it off the face of the earth using atomic weapons.
By hyperbolizing the consumer society in his novel, the author expresses his concern about the direction of human development. However, he believes that preserving spiritual values and knowledge can change the world for the better. He strives to convey this idea to readers through his heroes - connoisseurs of literature.
You can use this text for a reader's diary
Summary: Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451
America of the relatively near future, as the author saw it in the early fifties, when this dystopian novel was written.
Thirty-year-old Guy Montag is a fireman. However, in these modern times, fire brigades do not fight fires. Quite the opposite. Their task is to find books and set them on fire, as well as the houses of those who dared to keep such sedition in them. For ten years now, Montag has been regularly fulfilling his duties, without thinking about the meaning and reasons for such book-hatred.
A meeting with the young and romantic Clarissa McLelland unsettles the hero from his usual existence. For the first time in many years, Montag understands that human communication is more than the exchange of memorized remarks. Clarissa stands out sharply from the mass of her peers, who are obsessed with high-speed driving, sports, primitive entertainment in Luna Parks and endless television series. She loves nature, is prone to reflection and is clearly lonely. Clarissa's question: "Are you happy?" makes Montag take a fresh look at the life he leads - and with him millions of Americans. Quite soon he comes to the conclusion that, of course, this thoughtless existence by inertia cannot be called happy. He feels emptiness around him, a lack of warmth and humanity.
As if his guess about a mechanical, robotic existence is confirmed by the accident with his wife Mildred. Returning home from work, Montag finds his wife unconscious. She poisoned herself with sleeping pills - not as a result of a desperate desire to give up her life, but mechanically swallowing pill after pill. However, everything quickly falls into place. When Montag calls, an ambulance quickly arrives, and medical technicians quickly perform a blood transfusion using the latest equipment, and then, having received the required fifty dollars, they leave for the next call.
Montag and Mildred have been married for a long time, but their marriage has become an empty fiction. They have no children - Mildred was against it. Everyone exists on their own. The wife is completely immersed in the world of television series and now talks with delight about the television people’s new idea - she was sent the script for another “soap opera” with missing lines, which must be filled in by the viewers themselves. Three walls of the living room of the Montag house are huge television screens, and Mildred insists that they spend money on installing a fourth television wall - then the illusion of communicating with the television characters will be complete.
Fleeting meetings with Clarice lead to the fact that Montag turns from a well-oiled automaton into a person who embarrasses his fellow firefighters with inappropriate questions and remarks like: “There was a time when firefighters did not burn houses, but rather put out fires?”
The fire brigade is dispatched to another call, and this time Montag is shocked. The mistress of the house, caught in possession of prohibited literature, refuses to leave her doomed home and accepts death by fire along with her favorite books.
The next day, Montag can't bring himself to go to work. He feels completely ill, but his complaints about his health do not resonate with Mildred, who is dissatisfied with the violation of the stereotype. In addition, she informs her husband that Clarissa McLelland is no longer alive - a few days ago she was hit by a car, and her parents moved to another place.
His boss, Firemaster Beatty, appears at Montag's house.
He sensed something was wrong and intends to put Montag’s malfunctioning mechanism in order. Beatty reads a short lecture to his subordinate, which contains the principles of consumer society, as Bradbury himself sees them: “...Twentieth century. The pace quickens. Books are shrinking in volume. Abridged edition. Content. Extract. Do not smear. Hurry to the denouement!.. The works of the classics are reduced to a fifteen-minute program. Then even more: one column of text that you can skim through in two minutes, then another: ten to twenty lines for an encyclopedic dictionary... From the nursery straight to college, and then back to the nursery.”
Of course, such an attitude towards printed products is not a goal, but a means by which a society of manipulated people is created, where personality has no place.
“We should all be the same,” the firemaster inspires Montagu. - Not free and equal from birth, as the Constitution says, but... simply the same. Let all people become like each other like two peas in a pod, then everyone will be happy, for there will be no giants next to whom others will feel their insignificance.”
If we accept this model of society, then the danger posed by books becomes self-evident: “A book is a loaded gun in a neighbor’s house. Burn it. Unload the gun. We must curb the human mind. Who knows who will become a target for a well-read person tomorrow.”
Montag realizes the meaning of Beatty's warning, but he has already gone too far. He keeps books in his house that he took from the house doomed to be burned. He admits this to Mildred and offers to read and discuss them together, but finds no response.
In search of like-minded people, Montag comes across Professor Faber, who has long been taken note of by firefighters. Having rejected his initial suspicions, Faber realizes that Montag can be trusted. He shares with him his plans to resume printing, albeit in insignificant doses. The threat of war looms over America - although the country has already emerged victorious in atomic conflicts twice - and Faber believes that after the third conflict, Americans will come to their senses and, having necessarily forgotten about television, will feel the need for books. As a farewell, Faber gives Montag a miniature receiver that fits in his ear. This not only provides communication between new allies, but also allows Faber to gain information about what is happening in the world of firefighters, study it and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy.
The military threat is becoming more and more real; radio and TV are reporting the mobilization of millions. But even earlier, clouds are gathering over Montag's house. An attempt to interest his wife and her friends in books turns into a scandal. Montag returns to duty, and the team goes on another call. To his surprise, the car stops in front of his own house. Beatty tells him that Mildred couldn’t stand it and reported the books to the right place. However, her denunciation was a little late: her friends showed more efficiency.
By order of Beatty, Montag personally sets both the books and the house on fire. But then Beatty discovers the transmitter that Faber and Montag used to communicate. To keep his comrade out of trouble, Montag aims the flamethrower hose at Beatty. Then it's the turn of the other two firefighters.
From now on, Montag becomes a particularly dangerous criminal. Organized society declares war on him. However, then the big war begins, for which they have been preparing for a long time. Montag manages to escape the chase. At least, they will now leave him alone for a while: in order to convince the public that not a single criminal escapes punishment, the pursuers kill an innocent passerby who happens to be in the path of the terrible Mechanical Dog. The chase was broadcast on television, and now all good citizens can breathe a sigh of relief.
Guided by Faber's instructions, Montag leaves the city and meets with representatives of a very unusual community. It turns out that something like a spiritual opposition has existed in the country for a long time. Seeing how books were being destroyed, some intellectuals found a way to create a barrier to modern barbarism. They began to memorize works by heart, turning into living books. Someone confirmed Plato’s “Republic”, someone Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, the first chapter of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” “lives” in one city, the second in another, and so on throughout America. Thousands of like-minded people are doing their job and waiting for their precious knowledge to be needed again by society. Perhaps they will get their way. The country is going through another shock, and enemy bombers appear over the city that the main character recently left. They dump their deadly load on it and turn this miracle of technological thought of the 20th century into ruins.
