Intro to Fahrenheit 451
Author Biography
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury, the author of more than 500 published literary works, was born in Waukegan, Illinois, on August 22, 1920. Bradbury moved with his family to Tucson, Arizona, when he was 6, but returned to Waukegan the following year. In 1932, Bradbury's father lost his job and the family again moved to Tucson, only to return to Waukegan the next year. In 1934, when Bradbury was 14, the family moved permanently to Los Angeles, California. Mr. Bradbury still resides in Los Angeles, but regards Waukegan as his hometown and has used it as the setting of two of his novels, under the pseudonym of Green Town.
In his youth, Bradbury developed a love of magic and aspired to become a magician. Encouraged in his creativity by his family, Bradbury turned to writing at a young age, a profession at which many would argue he has worked quite a bit of magic. In 1937, at the age of 17, Bradbury became a member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, through which he published his first work, a short lived science fiction fan magazine. Bradbury's first short story was published in Weird Tales when he was 20. This was the first of many professional publications of Bradbury's work, which includes Dark Carnival (1947), Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), Dandelion Wine (1957), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), Death is a Lonely Business (1985), The April Witch (1987), Death Has Lost Its Charm (1987), The Toynbee Collector (1988), Graveyard for Lunatics (1990), Folon's Folon's (1990), Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity (1991), A Chrestomathy of Ray Bradbury: A Dramatic Selection (1991), and his most enduring work, Fahrenheit 451 (1953).
In addition to his numerous books and short stories, Bradbury wrote for years for both Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone. He has written two musicals, produced dramatic presentations of a number of his novels, and wrote the screenplay for 1953's Moby Dick. His cable television show, The Ray Bradbury Theater, has won numerous cable awards, and five of his novels (Fahrenheit 451, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, It Came from Outer Space, The Illustrated Man, and Something Wicked This Way Comes) have been made into major motion pictures. Bradbury was a consultant for the 1963 World's Fair and helped to design the Spaceship Earth ride at Disney World's EPCOT Center. Additionally, Mr. Bradbury has worked as a consultant on city engineering and rapid transit.
Though Ray Bradbury is most widely regarded as a science fiction writer, he has not limited himself to that genre, having also produced works of drama and psychological realism. Furthermore, it would be unfair to classify much of Bradbury's more philosophical science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 included, within the genre of science fiction. Fahrenheit 451 is as much a work of social criticism, comparable to Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, as a work of science fiction. Bradbury has also written works of horror, fantasy, and mystery, and many of his works - particularly his short stories - reject the supernatural entirely for themes of childhood wonder, love, nostalgia, and hope. Bradbury's work has contributed to American literature on many levels, and he remains one of a very few authors who entertains both young and old alike.
Bradbury has been the recipient of countless literary awards, including the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the Aviation-Space Writer's Association Award for best space article in an American Magazine, the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Award. In 2000, the National Book Foundation recognized him for his Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. And in his most unique and fitting recognition, the moon's Dandelion Crater was named after Bradbury's novel Dandelion Wine.
Mr. Bradbury, father of four daughters, Susan, Ramona, Bettina, and Alexandra, and grandfather of many, currently resides in Los Angeles, where he continues to write and speak, enjoys painting, and collects Mexican artwork. He suffered a stroke in 1999 but has continued to publish books at a prodigious clip. His more recent works include The Homecoming (2006), Let's All Kill Constance (2002), and One More for the Road (2002), a collection of short stories. Though he is one of the preeminent science fiction writers of his generation, he is also a noted technophobe: he has never driven a car, and he distrusts the internet, computers, and ATM machines.
About the Book
The story of fireman Guy Montag first appeared in "The Fireman", a short story by Ray Bradbury published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1951. Montag's story was expanded two years later, in 1953, and was published as Fahrenheit 451. While the novel is most often classified as a work of science fiction, it is first and foremost a social criticism warning against the danger of censorship. Fahrenheit 451 uses the genre of science fiction, which enjoyed immense popularity at the time of the book's publication, as a vehicle for his message that unchecked oppressive government irreparably damages society by limiting the creativity and freedom of its people. In particular, the "dystopia" motif popular in science fiction - a futuristic technocratic and totalitarian society that demands order and harmony at the expense of individual rights - serves the novel well.
Developed in the years following World War II, Fahrenheit 451 condemns not only the anti-intellectualism of the defeated Nazi party in Germany, but more immediately the intellectually oppressive political climate of the early 1950's - the heyday of McCarthyism. That such influential fictional social criticisms such as Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 and Skinner's Walden Two were published just a few short years prior to Fahrenheit 451 is not coincidental. These works reveal a very real apprehension of the danger of the US evolving into an oppressive, authoritarian society in the post-WWII period.
On a more personal level, Bradbury used Fahrenheit 451 as a vehicle through which to protest what he believed to be the invasiveness of editors who, through their strict control of the books they printed, impair writers' originality and creativity. Ironically, Fahrenheit 451, itself a vehicle of protest against censorship, has often been edited for foul language.
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's most popular novel, has been reprinted scores of times since initially published in 1953. The lessons of this American classic, the dangers of censorship and government control, have become increasingly important and the novel is as relevant today as it was when first written.
Historical Context
THE 1920s
Ray Bradbury is born on August 22, 1920.
Yevgeny Zamyatin completes his influential science-fiction novel We.
First issue of Amazing Stories comes out in 1926. Bradbury will be among early subscribers.
THE 1930s
Bradbury starts writing his own Buck Rogers stories.
Orson Welles delivers "War of the Worlds" broadcast.
Nazis burn books across Germany; newsreel footage appalls teenage Bradbury.
THE 1940s
Bradbury marries Marguerite McClure in 1947 and publishes his first book, Dark Carnival.
Orwell's 1984 published.
House Un-American Activities Committee investigates the movie industry.
THE 1950s
Bradbury publishes The Martian Chronicles in 1950 and Fahrenheit 451 in 1953.
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. breaks into Galaxy magazine.
Cold War imperils writers' civil liberties in the U.S. and their lives in the Soviet Union.
THE 1960s
Bradbury receives an Oscar nomination for animated short Icarus Montgolfier Wright, 1962.
Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Star Trek hook a new generation on science fiction.
Truffaut's film Fahrenheit 451 opens, starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie.
THE 1970s
Bradbury awarded lifetime World Fantasy Award.
Apollo 15 crew names Dandelion Crater for Bradbury's Dandelion Wine.
Star Wars opens in 1977, the last time anyone will think of science fiction as a cult genre.
THE 1980s
Bradbury receives lifetime PEN Center USA West award.
William Gibson pioneers science-fiction subgenre cyberpunk.
Fifteen more books from Bradbury, including horror collection The Toynbee Convector.
THE 1990s
Bradbury writes his memoir Green Shadows, White Whale about scripting Moby Dick.
Many science-fiction magazines shift to online format.
Bradbury suffers a near-fatal stroke in 1999. He polishes his first mystery while still in the hospital.
THE 2000s
More honors: National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and the National Medal of Arts.
Bradbury's wife dies in 2003.
Sam Weller's biography, The Bradbury Chronicles, appears in 2005.
Bradbury's adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 opens off Broadway in 2006.
Vocabulary to Start
451 degrees Fahrenheit:
Clarisse:
Guy Montag:
Icarus:
November 4:
phoenix:
proboscis:
theremin:
V-2 Rocket:
Vesuvius: