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Bible as a motif in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
Bible as a motif in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451
Biblical Allusion/Intertextuality
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Carlos Mejia Mrs. Bowen English 10B 29 June 2016 Style Analysis Essay The writing style of fahrenheit 451 is vivid and imaginative. Ray Bradbury uses many similes and metaphors to express how the characters feel or see things. For example, “With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world”. Ray describes the house shooting kerosene upon the burning house.
The author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, was an American creator that wrote many pieces of work including short stories, novels, plays and more in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror (Weiner 79). Bradbury was a master of creating allusions and other literary devices, including the novel’s title itself throughout his writing,
Fahrenheit 451 Paragraph In Fahrenheit 451, a novel by Ray Bradbury, the author uses an allusion from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to show that society prevents people from finding the truth. In the beginning of the novel, “He [Montag] stood looking up at the ventilator grille in the hall and suddenly remembered that something lay hidden behind the grille.” (Bradbury, 10)
In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury alludes to Willam Blake’s “The Tiger” and the Book of Job to further explain how Montag’s gaining of experience and knowledge causes his actions throughout the novel. The first allusion that explains how Montag’s newfound familiarity of knowledge leads to his actions is the title of section 3 which is “Burning Bright” (107). This alludes to Willam Blake’s poem “The Tiger”, as the very first line of the poem is, “Tiger, Tiger, burning bright”. In the poem, the speaker questions the tiger as an animal, specifically questioning its creation and creator. Within this poem, Blake alludes to another one of his poems “The Lamb”.
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is a classic novel that challenges authority through self-discovery and growth. The main character Guy Montag is a dedicated fireman. He enjoys his job, watching pages of books become nothing more than burnt ash. He has never questioned anything before, nor has he had a reason to. That is, until he encounters three important individuals that seem to influence a change in Montag and ultimately change his world.
The Importance of the Minstrel Man Allusion in Fahrenheit 451 As can be noticed by reading even the smallest portion of the novel Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag’s story is told in mostly metaphors, similes, and allusions. For example, at the very beginning of the story, the author writes, “He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror.” (Bradbury 2). This allusion sets the tone for how the reader perceives Montag throughout the rest of the novel.
In this passage, Bradbury uses religious imagery to present the theme of change and transformation. He portrays Montag as fire, Faber as water, and Montag-plus-Faber as wine. This is a biblical reference to Jesus Christ’s transformation of water to wine, as it was one of the miracles that evidenced his identity and brought belief into people. Montag wants a similar self-transformation, so he could become a better person, someone with quality. In addition, he wants to go back one day, and reflect on the “fool” he used to be in order to understand his old self.
Some have named Ray Bradbury “the uncrowned king of the science-fiction writers” because of his imagination and beautiful way of making Fahrenheit 451 come to life. The book Fahrenheit 451 is one of the first books to deal with a future society filled with people who have lost their thirst for knowledge and for whom literature is a thing of the past. The author mainly portrays this world from the point of view of Montag, a man who has discovered the power that knowledge contains and is coming to grips with the fact that it is outlawed. However, the reader also gets to see what life is like for one of the people content in living a life lacking in independent thought and imagination through his wife, Millie.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book about Guy Montag; a fireman living with his wife in a dystopian future where books are illegal. Firemen are responsible for burning houses that have books in them and arresting people who have books. This all changes when Guy starts collecting books as well. This leads him to go on a perilous adventure that could get him killed. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses allegories, motifs, and symbols to show that censorship is a danger to society and it will lead us to our doom because it results in us being desensitized, depressed and violent.
Bradbury first draws attention to the books as a symbol when the firemen burn the books. Books represent power; this society doesn 't want people to have power so they take it away from them. This symbol is the main focus of Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury states, ¨He carried the books into the backyard and hid them in the bushes near the alley fence¨ (Bradbury 2.364).
Biblical Themes The novel Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury is a dystopian science fiction. The main character, Guy Montag begins as a firefighter who ignites fires rather than extinguishing them. A corrupt government and society uses its citizens to destroy the past. By burning books and promoting technology and propaganda, citizens become numb to reality.
The book follows Montag’s physical and emotional journey towards understanding himself. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury uses books as a symbol to demonstrate the thematic idea of knowledge is power to express his fear about censorship going too far. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. ”(Bradbury 88).
How does Bradbury use light and dark imagery to characterize society? The light is the type of people trying to help the people in the dark to understand how they can change for the better,Montag takes a journey from a literary darkness to a knowledgeable light. “Her face, turned to him now, was fragile milk crystal with a soft constant light in it. ... the strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light of the candle.” (pg.
Inclusion of the Bible in “Fahrenheit 451” Throughout much of Ray Bradbury’s novel “Fahrenheit 451,” we witness a society with a very prominent disdain of books or anything that provokes thoughts within individuals in that society. The people’s dislike for valuable thought eventually led to all books, philosophy, religion, and deep thinking being completely banned. Our main character in the book, Guy Montag, soon realizes how the way the world is organized is not the way he wants to be living. The night that Montag had answered a fire call while working at the fire station was the night that changed his perspective into realizing that the world lacks any knowledge of value.
The question of whether Socrates was the only real philosopher comes from one interpretation of Plato’s writings, namely Apology. Written after Socrates was tainted with the sophistic brush, scorned by society and brought to trial. In this interpretation, it is believed that Plato derided all sophists and recognised Socrates as the only real philosopher among his contemporaries, and knew of no other who could be considered as such. I however, argue that Plato never regarded, nor defended, Socrates as the only real philosopher. Rather, he presented Socrates as one of the many ‘real’ philosophers.
