This article was downloaded by: [Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal]

On: 09 December 2014, At: 10:41

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954
Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,
UK

The Explicator
Publication details, including instructions for authors
and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vexp20

Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

a
Rafeeq O. McGiveron
a
Lansing Community College , USA
Published online: 09 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Rafeeq O. McGiveron (1996) Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, The
Explicator, 54:3, 177-180, DOI: 10.1080/00144940.1996.9934107

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00144940.1996.9934107

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,
or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views
expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the
Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with
primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any
losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,
and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the
Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,
 sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is
expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Downloaded by [Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal] at 10:41 09 December 2014
 ances to the contrary. Instead of simply resigning himself to a recognition of
the potentially destructive power of outside forces, Stafford lets “what the
river says” answer all deep questions concerning actions and influences. The
speaker of the poem seems to have found a way to resist, passively, all antag-
onisms and distractions with silence and at the same time to affirm the hope
of an eventual, life-sustaining thaw that the covering ice obscures. In terms of
the potential weight of tradition, Stafford has also found a way to transform
that tradition into support for his own style of writing.
Downloaded by [Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal] at 10:41 09 December 2014

Perhaps in the end, no final judgment can be made about the “I” of the
poem, nor about Stafford’s place in any literary canon. Life is too ambiguous;
social values are changeable. Nature, through the voice of the “silent river,”
always has the last word. But on the frozen surface of the poem, despite its
chill, Stafford has managed to “hold” parts of the current of art and of life in
“the stillness exactly before us.” And he has done so by maintaining a strong
sense of his own identity while still acknowledging the fluid complexities
likely to be discovered beneath his smooth surface.

-ERLAND G. ANDERSON, Southern Oregon State College

WORK CITED
Stafford, William. “Ask Me.” Stories Thar Could Be True. New York Harper and Row, 1977.

Bradbury’s FAHRENHEIT 451

Ray Bradbury’s 1953 Fahrenheit 451 contains a number of interesting styl-
istic devices. Robert Reilly praises Bradbury for having a style “like a great
organ. . . .” (73). David Mogen comments on the novel’s “vivid style” (1 10).
Peter Sisario applauds the “subtle depth” of Bradbury’s allusions (201), and
Donald Watt pursues Bradbury’s bipolar “symbolic fire” (197) imagery. In
recent micles I discussed Bradbury’s use of mirror imagery and nature
imagery.
In addition, throughout Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury uses imagery of hands,
making them significant reflectors of conscience. The hands of the misguided
are deceptively calm, reflecting the complacency of self-righteousness.At the
same time, the hands of the character struggling for right seem to do good
almost of their own volition, even before the mind has been consciously
decided. Finally, once characters are committed to positive action, their hands
become an unambiguous force for good.

177
 As the novel opens, “fireman” Guy Montag joyously goes about his job of
burning down a house found to contain books, and Bradbury describes Mon-
tag’s hands with ironic majesty. According to Bradbury, “his hands were the
hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and
burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history” (3). This early
in the story Montag does not yet recognize the true destruction of his profes-
sion; indeed, he finds it “a pleasure to burn” (3). Montag’s conscience is
blithely clear-or perhaps pathetically blank-and his self-confident, self-
Downloaded by [Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal] at 10:41 09 December 2014

aggrandizing hands are a reflection of this emptiness.

Montag, however, has from time to time been taking books from the for-
bidden libraries he bums. When we finally witness this, Montag’s hands
reflect the unacknowledged dictates of conscience:
Montag’s hand closed like a mouth, crushed the book with wild devotion,
with an insanity of mindlessness to his chest.
Montag had done nothing. His hand had done it all, his hand with a brain
of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger, had
turned thief. Now it plunged the book back under his arm, pressed it tight
to sweating armpit, rushed out empty. . . .
He gazed, shaken, at that white hand. (37-8)
His hand, of course, is not possessed by “an insanity of mindlessness.” On the
contrary, Montag has “a conscience and a curiosity . . .” but, still unwilling to
recognize them, he projects them into his hands.
Soon Montag visits Faber, a former literature professor, to try to enlist the
old man’s help. When Faber initially refuses, Montag holds out a Bible and
“lets” his hands shock Faber into action:
Montag stood there and waited for the next thing to happen. His hands, by
themselves, like two men working together, began to rip the pages from the
book. The hands tore the flyleaf and then the first and then the second page.
Montag . . . let his hands continue. (88)
Again Montag’s hands express what his consciousness scarcely can recog-
nize. He has no real wish to damage the old Bible, but his conscience appar-
ently understands that Faber’s help is even more important.
Once Montag returns to the firehouse, his hands feel restless under the gaze
of Fire Captain Beatty, his superior:
In Beatty’s sight, Montag felt the guilt of his hands. His fingers were like
ferrets that had done some evil. . . . [Tlhese were the hands that had acted
on their own, no part of him, here was where the conscience first manifest-
ed itself to snatch books. . . . (105)
Though Montag still has trouble accepting responsibility for breaking away
from the thoughtless destruction which had been his way of life, Bradbury sig-

178
 nificantly uses the word conscience again. Just as his hands first manifested
his new conscience, now they reflect his nervousness at possible discovery.
Captain Beatty leads the quivering Montag through a series of literary allu-
sions, yet while Montag’s hands reflect his precarious mental position, when
the mocking Beatty reaches out to check Montag’s guiltily racing pulse, his
“graceful fingers” (107) reflect a dogged self-righteousness. Bradbury
employs such ironic imagery to show that Beatty is still able to possess the
kind of clear (or blank) conscience which the nervous Montag fortunately no
Downloaded by [Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal] at 10:41 09 December 2014

longer has. Beatty unwittingly may be the novel‘s best spokesperson against
the stifling anti-intellectualismof his society, but he refuses to let any doubts
interfere with his work; unlike Montag’s, his hands never waver.
Bare minutes after the tense firehouse scene, Beatty forces Montag to bum
down his own house. As Beatty berates him and threatens to track down Faber,
Montag finds himself “twitch[ing] the safety catch on the flame thrower”
(1 19). Again, Bradbury has the conscience drive the hands onward even
before the conscious mind has reasoned out the situation: “Montag . . , him-
self glanced to his hands to see what new thing they had done. Thinking back
later he could never decide whether the hands or Beatty’s reaction to the hands
gave him the final push toward murder” (1 19).
Even when Montag finally kills the taunting Beatty, Bradbury displaces
him syntactically from the center of the action. Describing Beatty, Bradbury
writes, “And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gibbering
mannikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Mon-
tag shot one continuous pulse of liquid tire on him” (1 19). While Bradbury
does identify the actor as Montag rather than as his disembodied hands, the
abrupt transformation of Beatty and the placement of Montag toward the end
of the sentence emphasize the spontaneity of the action. Should any doubts
remain about the correctness of the action of Montag’s conscience-driven
hands, Bradbury has Montag think moments later in his flight, “Bearty want-
ed to die” (122). Though Montag would not have killed Beatty willingly, his
hands expressed what he consciously understands only later: “[Blum them or
they’ll bum you. . . . Right now it’s as simple as that” (123).
When Montag escapes into the wilderness and joins a group of book-mem-
orizing intellectuals, his first glimpse of them shows only “many hands held
to [the campfire’s] warmth, hands without arms. . . .” (145). After several
pages of highly didactic conversation with the group’s leader, Montag helps
put out the campfire: “The men helped, and Montag helped, and there, in the
wilderness, the men all moved their hands, putting out the fire together” (154).
Certainly putting out the fire is symbolic of stopping society’s book burning,
but Bradbury’s explicit mention of hands seem equally symbolic, for now
hands are revealed as an unambiguous force for good.
Montag shows this again when he realizes that the future will “come out our

179
 hands and our mouths” (161). Good thus comes not only from thinking and
talking but from actually doing as well. Bradbury reiterates this important
point when Montag thinks, “I’ll hold onto the world tight someday” (162);
just as hands may carry out deeds of conscience before the mind has fully
decided, once the decision has been made, the conscience-driven hands must
then follow though.
With his imagery of hands, Bradbury seems to suggest that actions may
indeed speak louder than words. It is doubtful that our hands will ever simply
Downloaded by [Bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal] at 10:41 09 December 2014

reflect the conscience as Montag’s so conveniently do, but it is equally doubt-

less that they should. Though blind self-righteousness may be most comfort-
able, Bradbury shows that the uncertainty of following one’s conscience is
morally preferable.

-RAFEEQ 0. McGIVERON, Lansing Community College

WORKS CITED
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. New York: Del Rey, 1991.
McGiveron, Rafeeq 0. “‘Do You Know the Legend of Hercules and Antaeus?’ The Wilderness in
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 45f.”Forthcoming in Extrapofation 38 (1997).
-,“ ‘To Build a Mirror Factory’: The Mirror and Self-Examination in Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 45I. Forthcoming in Critique.
Mogen, David. Ray Bradbuy, Twayne’s United States Authors Series 504. Boston: Twayne,
1986.
Reilly, Robert. “The Art of Ray Bradbury.” Extrapolation 13 (1971): 64-74.
Sisario, Peter. “A Study of the Allusions in Bradbury’s Fahrenhei? 451.” English Journcrl Feb.
1970: 210+.
Watt, Donald. “Burning Bright: Fahrenhei?451 as Symbolic Dystopia.” Ray Bradbury. Writers of
the 21st Century Series. Ed. Martin Harry Greenberg and Joseph D. Olander. New York:
Taplinger, 1980. 195-2 13.

Wilbur’s A SUMMER MORNING

Richard Wilbur’s little-known poem “A Summer Morning” strongly
deserves increased critical attention. The poem appeals to a wide range of
readers. To some extent, this is so because the poem’s theme-that the people
who can and should enjoy a summer morning in a beautiful place are those
who help to make the place beautiful, not necessarily those who hold the deed
to the property-complements the environmental concerns of many people
today. But mostly, the poem’s wide appeal stems from a combination of
accessibility and subtlety: the final lines state the theme so clearly that even
novice readers of poetry can appreciate it; yet because Wilbur relies on pre-

180