In 1966, Ray Bradbury wrote: "I locate now, right after the reality, probabilities are Fahrenheit 451 may well be about for a couple of years." At that time the brief novel, initially published in book type in 1953, had "been about" for 13 years. In 2003 it celebrated its 50th year in print, and now, in 2010, it is nonetheless as well-known as ever. Why has this story had such longevity?
Is it since Bradbury reversed a extensively accepted premise--rather of placing out fires, future firemen commence them? Is it simply because folks are horrified at the concept of censorship? Is it simply because of the passion with which Bradbury tells his story of rogue fireman Guy Montag?
Maybe. But I think the principal purpose Fahrenheit 451 has come to be a classic is since of its highly effective, 3-dimensional, multi-layered storytelling.
On the surface, Fahrenheit 451 seems to be around a Fireman's new-located like of books and his rebellion against burning them. Dig a tiny deeper and you are going to discover that Bradbury is painting a image of a planet that has grow to be desensitized, a recurring theme in a great deal of Bradbury's early operate.
In Bradbury's future, life goes on in the parlors, exactly where the walls are giant, interactive tv screens. Individuals plug their ears with seashell radios, even though they are asleep, and they normally OD on sleeping tablets in order to get to sleep. They drive extra than a hundred miles per hour to have exciting. They stay clear of mind of death or something else that tends to make them unhappy; 5 minutes following a particular person dies, his or her physique is dumped into a giant incinerator and lowered to ashes. Even in his descriptions of Montag's wife Bradbury symbolizes the drab artificiality of the society:
"Mildred stood over his bed, curiously. He felt her there, he saw her without the need of opening his eyes, her hair burnt by chemical compounds to a brittle straw, her eyes with a form of cataract unseen but suspect far behind the pupils, the reddened pouting lips, the physique as thin as a praying mantis from dieting, and her flesh adore white bacon. He may try to remember her no other way."
And:
"She ran previous with her physique stiff, her face floured with powder, her mouth gone, without having lipstick."
Bradbury too offers us a credible villain in Captain Beatty. Though Montag is a mouthpiece for the author, Beatty tends to make a superior argument that books cause unhappiness and must be eliminated--for the reason that the concentrate of this society is on happiness and not on considering too significantly.
But Montag suspects that individuals are not happy. The tv walls, the driving at super high speeds--and hitting items that wander unaware into their paths--the seashell radios, and the giant flues exactly where dead bodies are decreased to ashes in a second anesthetize them, numb their pain. If they do not believe, they cannot be unhappy. And books make them believe.
Bradbury suggests via Montag and Faber--a retired English professor who, following originally becoming frightened to openly oppose the status quo, assists Montag with his rebellion against conformity--that only though one thinks and feels, is one genuinely alive; quit pondering and feeling, and you turn into a zombie.
Whilst for the most part the technologies is a bit dated--Bradbury missed the World wide web completely, and communications are nonetheless snail-mailed--his prediction that tv would play a primary function in the thoughts-numbing of future generations seems to have been suitable on. That was a fairly astute speculation for 1950 (whilst Bradbury wrote his original novella, The Fireman, which was published in Galaxy Science Fiction) although several people did not understand the effective force that tv would grow to be.
I would have to agree with Bradbury's other prediction in 1966; I believe Fahrenheit 451 will be about for a couple of a lot more years. Even though it gets a small preachy at instances, is a effective story and encourages us to believe. I extremely propose it.
The title of David Kubicek's undergraduate thesis at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, exactly where he received a B.A. with distinction in English in 1977, was Ray Bradbury: Space Age Visionary. Kubicek has been a freelance writer ever because, with a short stint in publishing. He has published quite a few brief stories and quite a few articles, like nine years as a writer for the Midlands Business Journal. He has written a Cliffs Notes on Willa Cather's My Antonia. Kubicek lives with his wife and son in Lincoln, Nebraska. Take a look at his Weblog at http://davidkubicek.wordpress.com or his Web page at [http://www.davidkubicek.com].
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