Ray Douglas Bradbury
22 August 1920- (Age 90)
“What is fire? It’s a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledegook about friction and molecules. But they don’t really know. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you’re a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical” (Fahrenheit 451 115)
THESIS A: Bradbury peered deep into the darkest reaches of the American psyche and emerged enlightened, wielding a rich, provocative, distinctive literary voice born from his haunting life experiences to educate American society about itself-- and in the process turn humanity’s sight to its future.
ESSAY MAP: The qualities that most define Ray Bradbury’s distinctive literary voice include his eloquent usage of imagery and metaphor in each of his stories, a writing style that fused fantasy with science fiction, Bradbury’s social commentary on the direction that America is headed, and his unique philosophical viewpoint of eternal life and permanence through writing.
THESIS B: With his vast repertoire of literary works still read, analyzed, and considered relevant today, Ray Bradbury’s unique and fantastic literary styles and themes make him a master of literature whose work should be regarded as truly classic and worthy of inclusion in the American literary canon.
BIOGRAPHY
1920 - born to Ester and Leonard Bradbury in Waukegan, Illinois
1926 - watches Phantom of the Opera, begins lifelong love of theatre
1934 - moves to Los Angeles, graduates from Los Angeles High School
1941 - first short story is published, Pendulum
1946 - meets his future wife, Marguerite McClure, in a bookshop
1950 - collects short stories into The Martian Chronicles
1953 - finishes writing Fahrenheit 451 in the fevered times of McCarthyism
1976 - consulted by Disney about EPCOT for the American Bicentennial
WORKS OF NOTE
The Martian Chronicles (1950)
The Illustrated Man (1951, Short Story Collection)
Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
Dandelion Wine (1957)
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
HONORS
National Medal of Arts (2004)
Pulitzer Board Special Citation (2007)
Commandeur d’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2007)
Distinctive Features of Bradbury’s Work
I.Masterful Literary Voice
a.Literary Example: “with the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history” (Fahrenheit 451 3)
b.Critical Quote: “Bradbury is already famous for those stylized, concentrated passages of images which often appeal to the reader both concretely and abstractly” (Mengeling 885)
II.Personal Philosophy
a.Literary Example: “It growled again, a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle, a frying sound, a scraping of metal, a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with suspicion” (Fahrenheit 451 25)
b.Critical Quote:“Nature is submissive and controllable, while technology is predatory and threatening” (Huntington 137)
III.INTENSE SOCIAL CRITICISM
a.Literary Example:“Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life” (Fahrenheit 451 16)
b.Literary Example:“I don’t think it’s social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball...we never ask questions, or at least most don’t; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film teacher. That’s not social to me at all” (Bradbury 29)
c.Literary Example:“the images drained away, as if the water had been let from a gigantic crystal bowl of hysterical fish...The three women fidgeted and looked nervously at the empty mud-colored walls” (Fahrenheit 451 94)
d.Critical Quote:“the mass media must keep watering down the intellectual level of its material...Bradbury takes this problem to an extreme to show the potential effects of such a course on our culture” (Sisario 201)
e.Critical Quote:“No one communicates with anyone else on any but the most superficial level because the senses are completely inundated by constant sound and music blaring from vast TV-walls and transistor radios” (Hamblen 819)
IV.Bradbury’s Influence on America
a.Calvino’s Definition:“A classic is something that persists as a background noise even when the most incompatible momentary concerns are in control of the situation” (132)
b.Bloom’s List: Bradbury is not on Harold Bloom’s canon, neither are his works
c.Critical Quote:“Bradbury transcended the subcategory of science fiction and his work has earned at least a minor place in the canon of great twentieth-century literature, regardless of genre” (190)