Fahrenheit 451 Figurative Language

Stacia Dooley

Ms. DeLude

American Experience / 3

1 February 2023

Object vs. Man Ray Bradbury uses figurative language throughout Fahrenheit 451 to reveal new attributes of the characters and show their development. The novel is told from the perspective of Guy Montag and it follows his journey as he rebels against an oppressive society. Montag's character develops significantly throughout each part of the book and Bradbury uses personification to illustrate this transformation. Personification gives certain objects in the novel characteristics that signify important aspects or moments for Montag. He starts out as a fireman who burns books because of his society’s beliefs to becoming an intellect who reads and preserves them. His society controls

As Montag's character develops throughout the three parts of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses personification to display the divide between Montag's own thoughts and the society he lives in.

In part one of Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury uses personification to show Montag’s emotions as he begins to think outside of his society’s standards. After burning books, as dictated by his society, Montag steals one. However, Montag believes he is not the one, but instead, “His hand had done it all, his hand, with a brain of its own, a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had turned thief” (Bradbury 35). The hands are personified to imply they are unattached from Montag’s thoughts and that they are acting on their own. Bradbury uses the words “conscience” and “curiosity” to describe his fingers’ feelings even though they do not have that capability. His fingers were also “trembling” to show the regret Montag faces after stealing the book because of his desire to know about what was in it. Even though he had spent his entire life burning books, and despite it being against the law, Montag’s actions

As Montag is burning his own house after being caught with books, he feels that “emptiness made an even emptier whistle, a senseless scream…He cut off its terrible emptiness, drew back, and gave the entire room a gift of one huge bright yellow flower of burning” (Bradbury 111). The personification of emptiness as something that can whistle or scream is used to highlight its uselessness. Although Montag is forced to burn his own house because of society, he is actually happy to do it because it is destroying all of the emptiness it caused him. His thoughts relate to him getting rid of his old self and old life and forgetting about the house. As Montag continues to rebel, he is forced to escape the city to get avoid being killed by the Hound. When Montag is floating down the river, he sees the world as he never has before and is amazed by what he sees in the sky, “He saw a great juggernaut of stars form in the sky and threaten to roll over and crush him” (Bradbury 133). The stars are personified as something that can come to him and he cannot escape them. He is no longer a part of society since he is out of the city and he is seeing the world differently as he becomes a new person. As he continues to run away he comes to a group of men sitting around a fire. Montag looks at the fire but then “[t]he fire was gone, then back again,