Personification In Fahrenheit 451

There have been many books about what the future might be like, and many about how it could go wrong, but few were as popular or as ominously real as Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. While the book is marvel, the epigraph contained at the beginning is also quite a powerful message. Written by the Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez, it reads “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” As one might guess, this is not meant to be taken literally, but rather as a representation of the characters and society of Fahrenheit 451, and to an extent the people and society of the real world. By using this metaphor, you can divide the characters of the book (and by extension the people of the world) into a few categories, those that write normally,

These are the people that have and do write the other way. Among the limited selection within the world of F451, there are two within this category that stand out; Faber and Clarisse. Let’s start with the one we meet earlier, Clarisse, a young girl who seems to possess traits and characteristics so bizarre within this world that she is considered by Beatty to be someone who should be grateful she died as young as she did. She is inquisitive and doesn’t mind that she doesn’t fit in with those her age, being the first person that Montag met to make him truly realize just what sort of world he was living in. Now, we move onto Faber, a much older man with knowledge of the world from before the enforced rule against books. Faber is cautious, and terrified of what he thinks Montag might do to him, as shown when he tells Montag that “I haven’t done anything!” (Bradbury 76) However, once certain that Montag really has changed, he aids him in his escape of the city, as well as finding Granger and the other people that lived on the railroad. To write the other way is to not conform with society’s values and beliefs, either privately or in the open without a care, they simply do what they feel is