Fahrenheit 451 Fire Analysis

Fire can be used as a weapon of great destruction as well as an opportunity for new beginnings and life. Throughout the novel, it serves as a symbol of ruin as well as rebirth. The firemen use fire as a weapon to both destroy books and the homes of those who possess them. We can see within our own history the destructive properties of fire that strangely coincide with the novel. Montag witnesses both sides of fire in his lifetime. He has seen it cause pain and destruction but also bring hope and new beginnings. Just as a Phoenix rises from its own ashes, so too does Montag who rises from his faults and transforms into a flaming spirit of life lit by the words of wisdom derived from works of literature. Throughout the novel, Fahrenheit 451, fire can be seen as a symbol of destruction and chaos. The firemen use fire to burn away all works of literature and continue their hunt for books until all are destroyed. The main purpose of

Fire is used to burn away the hidden wisdom within literature, to never be heard or seen, only turning to ashes of forgotten knowledge. We can find in our own history books that we too once did this. Dating as back as the middle ages the burning of books has been an issue in our own history. In the book Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity: Studies in Text Transmission, Dirk Rohamm states, "some late antique emperor and early medieval kings used book-burning and censorship as a means of social control"(18). In other words, fire has been used as a weapon to burn books in the hopes to control nations socially and intellectually. If they are only given certain content they will not question the way society is living and this is exactly what it is like within the dystopian society of Fahrenheit 451. It is taken to the extreme, in the sense that people often fear books, finding them a threat to their way of