Author: Ray Bradbury
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Fahrenheit 451 is my first book by Ray Bradbury and I'm so glad I've read it. It's a little book packed with so much meaning and bibliophilia.
This book was on a long list of books I should have read a long time ago but didn't. It may even have been assigned to me once and I just didn't do it. Sadly, this behavior was very like me as a pre-teen/teen and I'm glad to rectifying this now.
Fahrenheit 451 (which is only 165) opens with Guy Montag, a fireman. He is burning books for a living and we are given to understand that this is what firemen do in the future - they don't put our fires, they start them. From here we learn the parameters of the world. It moves faster - literally. People drive at above 90 mph, sometimes killing other either for fun or by accident - something that is societally acceptable and not thought of as a tragedy. Giant tv monitors the size of a wall are installed into peoples homes so they can be entertained by endless television shows with no plot. Montag shows us that people are so busy being stimulated by images and sound and adrenaline that they doesn't question their society, they don't question why they can't read books, and they keep telling themselves that everything is okay as long as everyone is having fun.
But it seems not everyone is having fun. Very early into the book Montag walks home to find his wife dead. Montag's wife Mildred has taken a large amount of sleeping pills in order to kill herself. It seems A LOT of people in this book try to kill themselves: jumping off of roofs, provoking firemen who are trying to burn your books, getting hit by cars, taking too many narcotics... Mildred is patched up by the paramedics and when she wakes up the nest day, it's like the suicide never happened. She denies that she would ever do such a thing that it must have been a mistake. It's distressing how adamant she is about it not having happened and how happy she is.
Then Montag meets a teenage girl who is different from everyone else who is just going about their lives in this oddly absent way. She looks at things and people - really looks - and thinks about them. He is intrigued by her and loves the way she is silly and thoughtful and appreciative of the things around her. It gets him to consider the way he lives his life and realize a lot of the things he had been blind to earlier.
During one of his raids into a house, we see Montag snatch up a book and take it home with him. This is illegal and not only could he go to jail, but he could have his house burned down for containing books within it. We find that he has been collecting books for years but has never read them. Montag's need to steal these books shows that he has been unhappy for a long time but has never taken the time to realize it. From then on, Montag shares his secret with Mildred (which is a terrible idea because she is a vapid and happily ignorant woman), finds someone to confide in, gets caught for stealing and keeping books, commits murder, and goes on the run. I don't want to ruin Montag's internal transformation for readers who haven't read the book yet so I won't go any further.
I loved the messages in the book. It talks about:
It shows us how easily we are fooled by quantity over quality. The the book the government replaces books that make you think and music that makes you feel and reflect, with mindless television. They reprogram social interaction so that we don't create real connections with each other anymore. People are so busy having SO MUCH TO DO. They have SO MUCH TV TO WATCH. They're so busy being visually and audibly stimulated that they don't have time to think and the media that is available to them is so shallow that they have nothing to think about.
I don't think this is much different from the way a lot of us live our lives now. I'm always so busy trying to get from one tutoring job to another, from completing one task to the next, that I don't see things outside my bubble. We're just as plugged in as the characters in Fahrenheit 451 with out Angry Bird and Candy Crush Saga, with our iPad movies and headphone music. We are most of us always plugged in and we need to stop giving our brains so much mindless stimulation that we give up self-reflection, imagination, and quiet. The book teaches us to appreciate the things around us instead of shutting them out.
In addition, I feel we also have a problem discerning quality over quantity. People fall into this trap a lot thanks to marketing. You can buy a sandwich at a deli for $6 or $7. It would have real ingredients like turkey and cheese, lettuce and tomato, and whatever else you could think of. But why would you spend your money on that when a fast food meal with fries and a coke is the same price or cheaper? A lot of people would buy a supersize McDonalds meal and not the deli sandwich despite the ingredient being from less dependable sources and the lack of nutrition.
I also like that the novel emphasizes the importance of books. Now that the US is giving a huge push to STEM subject (which is totally fine), I feel like the humanities are becoming under-appreciated. Reading is incredibly important as it deepens critical thinking skills, teaches one how to argue a point, find evidence, support a claim, structure an argument, etc. Books also have a bit of every subject in them: psychology, science, history, etc. They let people go to places they may never be able to go to in real life. They allow people to live several different lives in the span of a few hours. They make us think about ourselves, about the people who came before us, and the people that will follow. As Faber in Fahrenheit 451 states:
During one of his raids into a house, we see Montag snatch up a book and take it home with him. This is illegal and not only could he go to jail, but he could have his house burned down for containing books within it. We find that he has been collecting books for years but has never read them. Montag's need to steal these books shows that he has been unhappy for a long time but has never taken the time to realize it. From then on, Montag shares his secret with Mildred (which is a terrible idea because she is a vapid and happily ignorant woman), finds someone to confide in, gets caught for stealing and keeping books, commits murder, and goes on the run. I don't want to ruin Montag's internal transformation for readers who haven't read the book yet so I won't go any further.
I loved the messages in the book. It talks about:
- why books enrich life (because they possess quality or information and create the leisure to digest it)
- why books are important
- why making your own decisions is important
- how quality is better than quantity
- how you should appreciate the things around you instead of shutting them out
- how ignorance is false bliss
It shows us how easily we are fooled by quantity over quality. The the book the government replaces books that make you think and music that makes you feel and reflect, with mindless television. They reprogram social interaction so that we don't create real connections with each other anymore. People are so busy having SO MUCH TO DO. They have SO MUCH TV TO WATCH. They're so busy being visually and audibly stimulated that they don't have time to think and the media that is available to them is so shallow that they have nothing to think about.
I don't think this is much different from the way a lot of us live our lives now. I'm always so busy trying to get from one tutoring job to another, from completing one task to the next, that I don't see things outside my bubble. We're just as plugged in as the characters in Fahrenheit 451 with out Angry Bird and Candy Crush Saga, with our iPad movies and headphone music. We are most of us always plugged in and we need to stop giving our brains so much mindless stimulation that we give up self-reflection, imagination, and quiet. The book teaches us to appreciate the things around us instead of shutting them out.
In addition, I feel we also have a problem discerning quality over quantity. People fall into this trap a lot thanks to marketing. You can buy a sandwich at a deli for $6 or $7. It would have real ingredients like turkey and cheese, lettuce and tomato, and whatever else you could think of. But why would you spend your money on that when a fast food meal with fries and a coke is the same price or cheaper? A lot of people would buy a supersize McDonalds meal and not the deli sandwich despite the ingredient being from less dependable sources and the lack of nutrition.
I also like that the novel emphasizes the importance of books. Now that the US is giving a huge push to STEM subject (which is totally fine), I feel like the humanities are becoming under-appreciated. Reading is incredibly important as it deepens critical thinking skills, teaches one how to argue a point, find evidence, support a claim, structure an argument, etc. Books also have a bit of every subject in them: psychology, science, history, etc. They let people go to places they may never be able to go to in real life. They allow people to live several different lives in the span of a few hours. They make us think about ourselves, about the people who came before us, and the people that will follow. As Faber in Fahrenheit 451 states:
The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, 'Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal'. Most of us can't rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you are looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine percent of them is in a book. Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for the shore.Fahrenheit 451 shows us how important it is to think for ourselves. Montag realizes that he has been following other people's rules for the majority of his life and even when he decides to go against the system he feels like he is just following Faber's orders. He says:
Bradbury, 86
"Faber?"I feel like this is the moment when Montag starts to take responsibility for himself. Before this he is making his decisions rashly and impulsively. This is when he tries to think through his decisions, when he tries to plan for the future. It's the first step to Montag being a force of change.
"Yes?"
"I'm not thinking. I'm just doing like I'm told, like always. You said get the money and I got it. I didn't really think of it myself. When do I start working things out on my own?"
"You've started already, by saying what you just said..."
Bradbury, 92
Fahrenheit 451 also goes into the negatives of "ignorance is bliss". Mildred and Captain Beatty are the best examples of this in the book. Mildred swears that she is happy and that the system works but she tries to commit suicide in the beginning of the book and is terrified of the idea of books in general. Her whole character arc reminds me of the Allegory of the Cave. She represents the cave dwellers that would not believe and that would rather kill than have the lies they are living revealed to them. Beatty is another great example except that he has read books and has been exposed to books. He quotes texts throughout the majority of the question and even goes out of his way to state that "what traitors books can be. You think they're backing you up, and then they turn on you." (Bradbury, 107). His is a story of someone who was wronged by literature, turning away from the thing he loved most and basking in that hatred until he it undid him.
Beatty wanted to die.Finally, I really appreciated that the novel didn't end with a happily ever after ending. Instead, it ends with a hope for the future, a hope that things may change, maybe not immediately but that if everyone plays their part, that things just may settle and rebuild after the rubble in cleared.
In the middle of the crying Montag knew it for the truth. Beatty had wanted to die. He had just stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, joking, needling, though Montag, and the thought was enough to stifle his sobbing and let him pause for air. How strange, strange, to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad, and then...
Fahrenheit 451 was an amazing book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a thought proving book or a short read.
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