Reading Assignment – Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

"Fahrenheit 451 – the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns..."

As the title suggests, Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction novel. It was written by Ray
Bradbury and published in 1951. During his career, Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) got many
distinctions: a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame, a crater from the moon was named after
his novel Dandelion Wine and there is a park in Waukegan, Illinois and an asteroid discovered
in 1992, which were named after him.

I believe the book to be exactly as cited from the back cover of the 50th Anniversary
Edition book: Equally fresh and even more relevant now, half a century after its appearance,
the novel succeeds in being a masterpiece of universal literature, a classic of the genre and a
bestseller.i Even though is a science-fictional work, the novel almost predicts the course of the
modern society: In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world
that might evolve in four or five decades.ii

I chose this book not because it might help me evolve my professional skills, like giving
me a better understanding of a programming language or mastering a newly developed device,
but because it surprises an idea, which I consider to be very important for a healthy
development of today’s society: technology should be nothing more but the means trough
which humankind can achieve a better life, not replace it.

As students in IT and management, we learn about new technologies and devices that
makes doing our job easier and increases our productivity. The IT department, not only uses
these technologies, but helps building and improving them. So, it is important to keep in mind
that what we are doing here and now might have a great impact on tomorrow.

The book acts as a warning, the action taking place in a future dystopian society, where
all printed materials have been banned and the duty of firefighters is to burn any books. Guy
Montag is a firefighter who really enjoys setting things on fire and being paid for it. He is the
product of a society that believes books can only bring inequality, a reminder of the
unpleasantness from the history of humankind; that books bring new ideas, which if were made
available to the people, would bring conflict and unhappiness would inevitably occur.
 One day, while Montag was coming from his job, he meets Clarisse McClellan, his new
vivacious teenager neighbor. While they were heading towards their home, Clarisse questions
Montag about his own personal happiness and about the fact that he knows little about history.
With these questions, Clarisse arouses Montag’s curiosity and helps him discover the real
happiness he was missing from his life for quite some time.

After his encounter whit Clarisse, Montag finally gets home only to find his wife,
Mildred (Millie), unconscious after she had overdosed on sleeping pills. Montag calls for
medical help and two technicians come, bringing some machines with which they pumped her
stomach and provided her with a full transfusion in a matter of minutes – here is presented the
so-called miracles that can be performed by technology. In our days, a full transfusion and a
gastric lavage can be done with special equipment, which is quite hard to transport and might
be even dangerous to perform these two procedures simultaneous. As stated before, technology
can improve one’s life standards, even save it, if used with caution.

After the overdose incident, Montag realizes that his life might not be as he thought. He
tries to talk with Millie about the incident, but she is interested only in her “family” – characters
from some TV shows she is following on her three wall-sized TVs. We can say that Millie is
obsessed with these TV shows, it’s like she enters some kind of a trance: she is in a great mood
and doesn’t even remember what happened last night, only that she is very hungry and missed
a lot her “family”. She lives almost in another reality: How long you figure before we save up
and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It's only two thousand dollars –
this is one of technology’s side effect, it can control you and distort your understanding of the
real world and ultimately affect your relationships.

Over the next few weeks, Montag’s unhappiness builds up and he starts to question
everything he thought he knew to be true about the righteousness of his job. He experiences
two things that make him realize that he needs to change his life. The first incident occurred
during a call to an old woman’s house to destroy her books. A fireman doesn’t incinerate only
the books found at a person’s house, but the house itself. Here, the old lady chooses to die in
flames with her books and her decision shocks Montag. The second shock comes when he finds
about his neighbor death; Clarisse was killed by a speeding driver. He grew close to Clarisse,
who opened his eyes to see the beauty which resides in everything, especially nature and not
in flames, as he so fiercely liked.
 These shocks were the trigger to Montag’s life-changing decisions: he starts to collect
books and stashes them in the air vent from his house. From each call he has, to burn a “book
collector criminal’s house”, Montag confiscates books and so he builds his own library. He
starts to read all those books and his perception of the world radically changes. Captain Beatty,
his superior, observes a change in Montag’s attitude and becomes suspicious. One day, when
Montag takes his day off by faking an illness, Beatty gives him a visit and talks to him about
that period in each fireman’s life when he wonders about what might be in those books he is
burning, why is considered having a book a crime punishable by incinerating one’s whole
house as if he knew about Montag’s new habits of stealing and reading books.

One day, Guy Montag decides that he needs to know more and he can not do that only
by reading some random books, so he searches for someone to teach him. He remembers about
a former English teacher, called Faber. He knew him because Faber was on the list of possible
book gatherers. Guy reaches out to Faber and insists in teaching him more about the real history
of men. First, Faber looks at this endeavor whit great skepticism, because he started to believe
that books can no longer change the society he was living in, but after seeing Montag’s
determination, he accepts this new assignment.

The country in which Montag was living in is warring against another great country and
the threat of the war increases, ten million men being mobilized. Even though the situation is
dire, the people expect a great victory. The war between these countries intensifies, but Guy’s
war has only begun.

After his meeting with Faber, Montag goes home and starts to talk about books and
different ideas he discovered by reading with his wife, Millie. He reads with her from different
books of poetry on a regular basis, but Millie doesn’t share Montag’s view on books and their
benefits.

Montag starts to develop a friendship with Faber strengthen by they shared love for
books. They have numerous meetings, during which Montag develops a plan to destroy this
crooked system. Montag planned to plant books in firemen’s houses and by doing that, he
would destroy the government’s main tool of persecution, by simply burning down firemen’s
houses or by simply making them suspects and diminishing their authority. It was a brilliant
plan, as Faber stated, if only Montag wasn’t so fired up and bent on opening other’s eyes about
the life they were living and the false happiness they were chasing.
 One day, after a short meeting whit Faber, Montag hopes he could continue his
discussions home with Mildred, but upon arriving, he finds that Mildred has company: Mrs.
Phelps and Mrs. Bowles came to visit Mildred. Montag grows tired of listening to the women’s
meaningless triviality and decides to read aloud a poem. Even though the women are moved
by the poem, they discard it shortly and dismiss any further discussion. Enraged, Montag starts
to curse Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles’ empty and corrupt lives. The women leave the house in
tears and Millie rushes to the bathroom and starts taking her pills.

The next day, Montag goes to his fire station and has quite a heated discussion with
Captain Beatty about his recent behavior; earlier that day, Beatty got a complaint from Mrs.
Phelps and Mrs. Bowles about the incident from the other night, but he decided not to act on
it. In the middle of their discussion, they got a call to a house in Montag’s neighborhood. Upon
arriving at the specified address, Montag freezes – it was his house. Guy realized that Millie
turned in the fire alarm.

Beatty wasn’t happy about this, but he ordered Montag to burn his own house. Guy sets
his own house on fire and in some way, he enjoys it, reminding us of his initial stat, in which
he simply found pleasure in setting things on fire and watching them burn. He might have
enjoyed burning his house because he didn’t have any kind of truly happy memories in it, his
relationship with Millie was like an empty shell.

After watching his house crumbling down, Montag turns to Beatty and in a split second
sets him on fire. Beatty falls on the ground and finally gives his last breath, but not before
telling The Hound to take down Montag. The Mechanical Hound is best described as a device
of terror, a machine that is perversely similar to a trained killer dog but has been improved by
refined technology, which allows it to inexorably track down and capture criminals by stunning
them with a tranquilizer.iii – here we can see that technology is neither moral/good, nor
immoral/bad/evil, it is amoral (The Hound can be used to track down dangerous individuals in
hard environments, but it can also be used as a killing machine). The state of the technology is
given by humans, for what are they using it, for bringing peace and healing or waging wars and
destruction…

Montag takes down two of his colleagues, Stoneman and Black, trying to escape The
Hound, but it stuns him in the leg with a procaine needle. Montag realizes that he is a wanted
criminal now, running from the police and the firemen, with no one to seek help, only Faber.
After realizing this, Montag snatches some books from his collection and stars running.
 In the following moments, Montag has a choice to make: to run straight to Faber or to
go by his colleague, Black, and enact his plan by planting the books he just took from his house.
Without any second thoughts, he goes to Black’s house and leaves the books in his kitchen. He
does that because Black was responsible for burning many other’s homes, because he believes
that Black deserves to have his own house burned.

After completing his quest, Montag rushes to Faber’s home. On his way to Faber,
Montag discovers that war has been declared in his town. Even though he managed to evade
The Hound this far, now he faces a great challenge: crossing a boulevard. Maybe at first look
this may sound trivial, but the action of the novel takes place in the 24th century, where high-
speeding car is a pleonasm (billboards are a few hundred feet long, so the drivers have time to
see it), hitting pedestrians became a sport and let’s not forget about Montag’s leg, which was
stunned by The Hound’s procaine needle. With a little luck and a fortuitous stumble, Montag
manages to escape death’s gripping hand.

Finally, Montag reaches Faber’s home. Here he changes his clothes and then he makes
a run for the river as The Hound caught up with him. He plunges into the river and The Hound
loses his scent. The police cannot admit their failure, so they chose an innocent man as a victim
for the TV cameras. The Hound catches and kills the innocent man and the populace is deceived
into thinking that Montag has been caught.

Montag flows with the river. He is now an outlaw. After a while, he continues his
journey on foot. Half an hour later, he meets with a group of outcasts. Montag sees the fire as
“strange”, because It was burning, it was worming. This fire doesn’t destroy, but heals, drawing
Montag to the company of his fellow outcasts. The leader of the group is Granger, a former
author and intellectual. Granger seems to have expected Montag and offers him a bottle of
colorless fluid, which would render The Hound’s tracking ability useless.

When Montag expresses his prior knowledge of the Book of Ecclesiastes, Granger is
happy to tell Montag of his new purpose in life: Montag will become that book. Not only does
Montag learn the value of a book, but he also learns that he can "become the book". Then
Montag tells Granger about his plan to plant books in firemen's houses and his failure trying to
do it. Granger replies that the plan may have worked had it been carried out on a national scale.
Granger feels, however, that the commune's way of giving life to books through their
embodiment in people is the best way to combat the censorship of the government.iv
 The war could begin at any time, so they always have to keep moving further away
from the city, the target of the attacks. Montag sees his former life fall apart as the city around
him faces a battle in which it will be destroyed. The city is destroyed by the jets which drop
continuously bombs. They decide to rebuild the society and Montag remembers a very relevant
passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes about a time to sew, a time to reap, and the tree of life.

On the last pages of the book there is a paragraph that surprises the essence of the book:
"There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he
built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he
burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks
like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never
had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done
for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can
see it, someday we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of
them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation". Obstacles, mistakes,
failures they’re all part of the process, but they only help if you learn from them, to overcome,
to make it right, to rise again and never give up.

Despite being a fictional work, this book helped me understand that it is important to
decide from the very beginning what you want to do with your skills, with what God gave
you; not technology defines the man, but the man defines technology. I also learned that there
might have to be some destruction in order to create something new and better and that I
shouldn’t be afraid of this ‘destruction’, but to seize the opportunity and build something
new, something better.

i
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 - 50th Anniversary Edition, 2001
ii
R Bradbury, quoted by Kingsley Amis in New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (1960).
iii
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/fahrenheit-451/summary-and-analysis/part-1
iv
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/fahrenheit-451