STUDY GUIDE
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Directions: The Fahrenheit 451 final exam will test how well students read the novel and how well they took notes during in-class discussions. The following guide will help students recall the key sections of the novel that they will need to know in order to do well on the test.
Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953. Its genre (category of literature) is science fiction.
Guy Montag, the protagonist (the novel’s main character), appears to be happy in his job as a fireman. He says, “It was a pleasure to burn,” which means that he enjoys his job as a fireman. Ironically, the firemen in the novel do not put out fires and rescue people like our modern-day firemen; in the futuristic, fictional world of Fahrenheit 451, firemen burn books and frighten ordinary citizens. The hose used by the firemen sprays kerosene instead of water. The young people in this society are not nice, either; they spend their time speeding and wrecking their cars, physically beating up one another, smashing windows, and goofing off at amusement parks. People’s lives tend to center on large television sets. Montag’s own house has a television room containing wall-size TVs on three of the four walls. Montag’s wife, Mildred, loves the actors on the TVs so much that she considers them to be her own family: “My ‘family’ is people,” she says. “They tell me things: I laugh, they laugh! And the colors!” Besides large TVs, people also use earplug radios called “seashell radios.” Montag is distressed about his wife Mildred’s suicide attempt. She took an overdose of pills, but she is saved by two technicians who come to their home and use a pumping machine to replace Mildred’s blood in order to save her life. Montag thinks the pumping machine looks like a snake. Montag’s meetings with Clarisse McClellan, however, have a powerful influence on him. Clarisse is a free spirit whose greatest influence has been her uncle, with whom she lives. Montag’s second self, the one who isn’t happy, is disturbed by Clarisse. In fact, she seems to be a mirror of his inner thoughts and feelings.
Captain Beatty is the captain of Montag’s fire department. Beatty seems to be totally unfeeling and possesses a bizarre view of the world. “We must all be alike,” Beatty tells Montag. “Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal.” Beatty, who claims that the very first fireman was Benjamin Franklin, also seems to be suspicious of Montag. The introduction of the Mechanical Hound, which is able to track its prey through a strong sense of smell, is important because it stands in such harsh contrast to the friendly, cute Dalmatian dog typically associated with firemen. The Mechanical Hound at the fire department seems to dislike Montag because it growls at him. Interestingly, the fire truck is referred to as a “salamander.” People of the ancient world thought that the salamander was the only creature able to endure fire without burning. The fire at the old woman’s house, where the woman chooses to burn to death with her books as Montag and the other firemen prepare to destroy the books, transforms Montag. He realizes the difference between things and people; both seem to be the same to Beatty. Mildred’s emptiness and robot-like reactions make him realize how isolated he feels. Clarisse’s death – she was run over by a speeding car – adds to his despair.
Beatty’s long speech in Section 3 of this 8-section book deserves careful study. He is a spokesman for the masses, and his explanation for the insanity of this society almost seems to make sense. A close reading of his speech offers an opportunity to think about the consequences of censorship and the meaning of the word “equal.” Montag’s metamorphosis is now well under way. He knows there is something in books that he needs and wants to understand. He hopes the truth he seeks is enough to awaken Mildred from her zombie-like existence.
Montag begins acting as his second self, the one that Clarisse brought out. His “fireman” self is still with him, but he is beginning to have his own thoughts about how to save society. Professor Faber, who claims that people no longer want to read because they are having too much “fun” doing other things, is an important mentor and teacher to Montag.
(over)
Montag’s tirade against Mildred and her friends, including Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps, is his first attempt to express his revolutionary thoughts and feelings to someone from the zombie-like world. When he reads a poem aloud to the women, Mrs. Phelps begins to cry. Montag’s wife, Mildred, ends up turning in an alarm against Montag, so that the firemen will come to their house to burn the books that Montag has been collecting illegally. Montag realizes he has made an error, and this makes him nervous at the fire station, where Beatty tells him about a “dream” he had. Beatty spits out literary quotes that contradict one another and completely confuse Montag.
Section 6 can be understood on a symbolic level. As he burns his house and then turns his torch on Captain Beatty, thus burning Beatty to death, Montag is also burning his past and any possibility of continuing his old life. When Montag realizes that Beatty wants to die, the reader sees that Beatty has a second self, too, one perhaps very similar to the person Montag is becoming. Montag’s killing of Beatty is the novel’s climax. As Montag hears the announcement that the threat of war is now a declared reality, he begins his own battle. He argues with himself and even considers giving up. As he takes the books to fireman Black’s house and phones in the alarm, he acts as a sort of behind-the-lines rebel. The ten-lane highway he crosses is like a battlefield, and the youthful drivers in the cars want to kill him even though they have no idea who he is, just as young soldiers in battle kill enemy soldiers. By the time he arrives at Professor Faber’s home, Montag is energized and in charge of his life. He is doing his own thinking now. His heroism even makes the frail Faber “feel alive.”
Montag’s ability to monitor his own crisis by watching it on neighborhood televisions is supreme irony. Notice the significance of the river: Water, the enemy of fire, saves Montag from being destroyed by the Mechanical Hound, the creation of a world gone mad. The river serves as a symbol of rebirth. Fire, in contrast, is a symbol of cleansing, with bad things being burned away. Montag finally has time to escape from the chaos of the past week, and he is now given the time to consider it all. The river and the fresh forest air are purifying, and the pace of the novel slows down. The campfire in the forest is a warming one, not a burning one. As Montag watches the televised death of an innocent pedestrian, he is further freed from the past.
In the forest, Montag runs across the “Book People” and their leader, Granger. Granger’s speech about his grandfather ranks in importance with the speeches of Faber and Beatty. The idea that it is what we do in life that matters is worth thinking about. In fact, Montag realizes he doesn’t miss Mildred because she never did a thing. Montag is a little disappointed that the men in the forest, who are mostly old professors and other intellectuals who memorize entire books, are not action-oriented. Compared to them, he seems idealistic and full of energy to make changes. After the bombs destroy the city where Montag once lived, Granger cynically says that it is history repeating itself in another cycle of destroy-and-rebuild, and he reminds the men to always keep in mind that they are nothing. Author Ray Bradbury makes a valid point here about learning from past mistakes. In the end, Clarisse McClellan, Professor Faber, and Granger end up being the true friends of Montag in the novel.
This novel is full of irony. Irony is an unexpected twist in a story. It may be a contrast between what is expected or hoped for and what actually happens. It may also be a contrast between what appears to be and what actually is. Here are four examples of irony:
§ Firemen start fires and frighten people in the novel; shouldn’t they be putting out fires and saving people?
§ Mildred Montag considers the actors on the TV to be her “family,” but isn’t she neglecting her real family while watching TV?
§ At the end of the novel, the people in the forest are saving books by memorizing them, but they, too, are burning the books when they finish memorizing them.
§ Beatty calls books treacherous weapons, yet he uses his own book learning to manipulate Montag.
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