Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian science fiction novel written by the American author Ray Bradbury in 1953. The main character is a man called Guy Montag. He is a fireman who also loves books in a society where books have been banished and firemen are charged with burning those they find. The place Montag lives in, a futuristic American city, is oppressive and its inhabitants have lost the sense of positive values such as reading, enjoying nature, meeting people or thinking by themselves. And a war is looming…

At the beginning of the novel, Montag meets a young girl named Clarisse. She is different – she loves people and nature – and asks questions that make Montag realize how empty his life is. Dissatisfied with his life, he tries to find solutions in the books he steals from the houses he has been into to put out fires. But as books offended readers, they were soon forbidden, and Montag has to keep them hidden. When Beatty, Montag’s chief, knows that he has some books at home, he does not denounce him, but he tells him to read them, and if there is nothing interesting inside, he should burn them. There are so many books to read that Montag asks Faber, a retired English professor, to help him as Mildred, his wife, refuses to read. Indeed, she prefers watching television and she simply does not understand why her husband takes so many risks. Faber will contact a printer to have the books reproduced while Montag will hide books in the homes of firemen to discredit the profession and to stop censorship. But soon, Montag is betrayed by Mildred who calls the firemen in order to denounce her husband. Trapped, Montag has to set his own house on fire. As Beatty decides to arrest Montag, the latter uses his flame thrower against his superior and kills him. Then, he collects some books hidden in the back yard and flees. On his way, he comes across a group of vagabonds who are also book lovers. They welcome him. As the war has just begun, the group decides to find survivors and rebuild civilization.

Ray Bradbury explains that he decides to entitle his book Fahrenheit 451 (232,8° Celsius) because “at 451° paper catches fire and burns. So it was only natural that I sat down and wrote Fahrenheit 451.”

Dystopia is the contrary of utopia. A dystopia is a terrible place where a disastrous future is imagined, where oppression is omnipresent and where social order is maintained through fear. In the novel, the characters reject the book because it could betray them and consequently, nobody has the right to find pleasure in literature, which is considered as subversive. Censorship is also a recurrent theme in dystopian novels. In the novel, the television has replaced the book because it does not lead people to think and people cannot express personal freedom.

The book was written after World War II and reminds the readers of the terrible book burning that took place in Nazi Germany in 1933. To Ray Bradbury, books are part of ourselves, they have a major role to play and people must be aware of that. Getting rid of books is one of the most important errors humanity can make. We owe a lot to literature, books teach us so many beautiful things that we must protect them.