Fahrenheit 451 – A Book To Be Burned
Fahrenheit 451 is a classic read by Ray Bradbury that I would not recommend. However, this is an opinion due to how the book ends. Personally, the ending was to abrupt and left on a cliffhanger that either could make you think a lot or nothing at all. Before you continue reading, there may be a few spoilers, so read at your own risk.
Fahrenheit 451 is about a futuristic, dystopian society where books are a thing of the past and the only thing society has to look forward to is the next T.V. program. However these books are not just forgotten, but burnt instead by firefighters. Guy Montag, one of the firefighters and also our protagonist, takes pleasure in burning books even though he has a few illegal ones of his own. Of course you are thinking, ‘Shouldn’t firefighters try and prevent fire rather than start them?’ However in this story books are being destroyed by society so no one will have the mental capacity or power to rebel. Anyways, the first person to take Montag out of his controlled state of mind is Clarisse, a 17 year old avid daydreamer. She showed him a new way of thinking by walking with him everyday to the train and on his way home at night. But just as soon as he believes he has his life figured out, he finds out that she has been tragically hit by a car. Even though this was so sudden and local, no one seems to care.
This was one of the few times that Montag understands that no one cares about anyone or anything but themselves. However, later on Montag decides to share his secret with his wife Mildred. Now that Mildred knows about the hidden books she later goes on to turning Montag in to his chief Beatty who was already suspicious of him. Beatty forces Montag to burn his entire house and the books, but before he finishes Montag burns Beatty alive and Montag is on the run. He soon stumbles upon other fugitives wanting to tell stories like himself. In the end, the group hears the explosion of a bomb towards the city and decide to walk towards it as if it did not phase them at all. What happened to everyone? How did the bomb not also kill the group of fugitives? Why such a confusing cliffhanger?
I had to put the book down for a few days and then I went back to it and read the last part again but it still did not add up. Although there were many instances of foreshadowing in the story, it seems as though none of them tie up any loose ends or even incorporate the ending at all. Unlike other readers, I want a structured ending that could answer all of my questions. Lastly, although I believe that Montag’s external conflict with Beatty and the rest of the society are partly resolved, his internal conflict and his own contradictions were never understood. Does Montag understand where he went wrong in the city and how he did not fit into culture? Or will the government, as planned, try to manipulate culture from the inside out again in the future? I believe that if this was in actual modern day, there would not even be a chase between Montag and the government.
Nowadays, most of our policemen are much more competent than any mechanical hound since it lacks emotion. You can not have a blood hungry robot running around a city after a fugitive unless you are looking for a disaster. But it seems as though no one cares who is hurt everyday as long as their full time goal is accomplished. Along with this, compared to modern day, war seemed as though it was always happening. During the book, a bomber plane would fly over head and would seem normal to the citizens but it would not for us. However this novel was only published in 1953, and having Google at your fingertips to predict different possible war scenarios was not possible.
When Ray Bradbury was writing this, I doubt books were even close to being forgotten. Recently since smartphones have been able to obtain any paper book, libraries are starting to get less and less popular because there is apparently no point in holding a paper book anymore. This book can be seen as being slightly relevant due to the “burning” of books but not physically, and because of the great amount of references of consumerism. It seems as though books are being burned from our memories since it is easier to use technology then acquire a book, and the adds for technology are helping this. Although this book was not as amazing as I was expecting it to be, I think that everyone should have to read this book in their life. Whether they are being forced to for school or the person actually enjoys to read, it is a great way to think about life without books, and if we would have been able to get where we are today without them.
