Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Humans cannot resist the allure of theorizing what the future will bring. Some may view it through rose-colored glasses, hoping for some type of utopia. Others may have a pessimistic view of the future of mankind, hypothesizing when the next world war will take place. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel, whose themes can be compared to those of other dystopian books such as George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In Bradbury’s world, he imagines a totalitarian police state where the firemen rule with a brass nozzle, enforcing the government’s agenda by burning books. The novel is based on real fears of nuclear war and communism during the Cold War, along with Bradbury’s personal fears of technological modernizations

By taking science fiction and adding his own poetic flair, Bradbury reveals his routine style in Fahrenheit 451 through his use of symbolism, irony, and imagery.
Bradbury’s use of symbolism is apparent in the first chapter of Fahrenheit 451, where the protagonist, Guy Montag, meets Clarisse McClellan, whose face is “like a mirror” (Bradbury 8). This first impression not only functions as a descriptor for Clarisse’s character, but also introduces the mirror as a symbol and indicates the fundamental problem with Montag’s society. The novel reflects several dystopian themes where the government declares everyone free and happy, as M. Camara in his article, “Contemporary Anglo-American Dystopian Fiction”, emphasizes that the “spiritual void prevailing in the society” (Camara 79) is caused by the fact that “people are spared the pain of reflecting on complex questions” (79). He suggests that totalitarian rule creates a hive of people who are incapable of any type of self reflection or self-understanding. Moreover, the comparison of Clarisse’s face to a mirror signifies the fact that she is different from others, whose faces were often

Did we have a wild party or something? Feel like I’ve a hangover. God, I’m hungry. Who was here?” (Bradbury 16). Montag’s wife, Mildred, thinks she is suffering from a hangover rather than the effects of being revived after her suicide attempt. Although this may be viewed as simply a humorous use of irony, it also instills some feelings of disbelief in the reader, and shows how the character handled the unexpected situation. The use of irony to reveal aspects of character is also seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s writing, whose work largely influenced Bradbury’s style. In Poe’s short story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, after walling up his victim in the catacombs, Montresor’s reaction is simply: “My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so” (Poe 29). Here, Poe confirms to the reader exactly how heartless Montresor is; he is saddened, not by the crime he just committed, but by the weather of the catacombs. Poe illustrates this character’s narcissism in a humorous way, through verbal irony. Bradbury does something similar, rather than saying, “Mildred is a hedonist who happens to be detached from reality,” he shows it through the verbal irony where she calls the people in the walls her “family” but does not even call Montag her “husband”. Further examples of irony that support the larger idea of characterization include Clarisse referring to herself as “crazy”