Referat Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (first published in 1954) - About the Author, Main characters, Plot

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (first published in 1954)

About the Author

Raymond Douglas Bradbury was born in Waukegan (Illinois) on 22nd of August 1920. This city was later also described in his stories under the name 'Green Town'. At the age of 14 years he moved to Arizona and later to Los Angeles where he finally finished school. His parents, who were book publishers, and his aunt Neva, a fan of fairytales, influenced Bradbury very much. As a child he liked comics, horror films and fantasy worlds. In 1934 he started writing short stories which mostly trade with science fiction, and published them in youth magazines or science-fiction-magazines.

By writing stories and even selling newspapers he earned a little money; in 1947 he published his first book called 'Dark Carnival', an anthology of his short stories. He finally made the breakthrough as a highly acclaimed author with 'The Martian Chronicles', later he wrote works like 'The Illustrated Man' and 'Fahrenheit 451' and he got prices like the 'Benjamin Franklin Award' or the 'National Institute of Arts and letters Award in Literature'. An interesting fact concerning the success of his books is that 'The Illustrated Man' has been a highly praised work, whereas 'Fahrenheit 451', his most famous book, was judged as a story beneath contempt (by reviewers) because of the missing description of for instance the political system, the very optimistic ending.

Main characters:

Guy Montag is the protagonist of the story. At the beginning he seems to be a 'normal', dissatisfied and bored average guy. He earns his money by burning books because he's a fireman in a narrow-minded, partly dictatorial system. When he meets Clarisse, his character changes: he acquires self-knowledge; he undergoes a process of development and gets to know the other side of books and knowledge. By reading stories he starts to think and so there arises a dilemma between his job and his new attitude: both are inconsistent with each other. He makes up his mind, decides to fight for intellectual liberty what makes him happy but also completely left out by society.

Mildred Montag is Guy's wife but has a totally different character. She's the typical member of society; she fits into the system very well, is only interested in money and material possession and represents shallowness and mediocrity. Mildred, an artificial and obviously isolated beauty, loves fun, which means e.g. watching TV, and because of her addiction to electricity, technology and the 'modern way of life' she isn't even able to communicate. She doesn't show any emotions and she also betrays her husband in the end.

Clarisse McClellan is the 17-year-old neighbour of Guy Montag and influences him very much. She's the exact opposite of Mildred: She's an outsider, she's everything but an average girl, she's even a living time bomb for society for various reasons. She's open-minded, she is able to think, she has her own opinion. She doesn't mind asking unusual or even dangerous questions. She's quite a human and curios person who's able to do something.

Captain Beatty is the boss of Montag, his antagonist and quite an impenetrable person. He's ruthless, cold-blooded, very authoritarian and seems to be very smart. He's well educated and he often quotes famous authors (which indicates that he could have read books, too). In the end he overdoes it with his accusations and manipulates Montag into killing him.

Fabian is an ancient professor, loves philosophy and science and so he represents humanism and the integrity of an individual. He's quite well informed and of course well read, he knows really a lot about the past but also has a negative side: He's more than careful, he's a real coward, but in the end he gets more courageous.

Plot:

Guy Montag, a fireman of the future, lives in a modern, strange and scary world where students don't learn from humans, but from TV (so they can't ask questions), where people get rid of their aggressions by visiting 'Fun Parks' and 'Car Wreckers', and where human beings try to have fun by killing others. The most important aim of humans is having fun - even by taking pills, which might be suggestive of drugs you take today to feel better or to forget your problems.

In this depressing world where people can't even talk to each other, it is Montag's job to find books and to burn them. At the very beginning of the first chapter his job and the feelings of firemen doing their job ('It was special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed') is described.

One day, the protagonist gets to know his new neighbour, Clarisse McClellan, a young and critical girl who prompts him to start thinking about his meaningless life and books. The relationship with Clarisse who soon gets killed in an accident  influences Guy very much, so he gets problems with his feelings and even wants to take the beetle to get rid of his aggressions and kill animals but finally he comes under the books' spellbound. The next incisive event in Montag's life is a meeting with an old woman who prefers dying in a sea of flames to 'living' without her beloved books. Montag gets the order to burn books in the house of an old and withdrawn woman who refuses to leave her home while the firemen burn her books. This event made quite a big impression on Montag who also steals a book from the lady. Montag reads the book unaffected by warnings of his boss, Beatty, who apparently knows that Montag does own a book. The only problem Guy has while reading the book is that he can't remember what it is about.

Later he gets to know some of Mildred's friends, Mrs Phelps and Mrs Bowles, who characterize the attitude of citizens concerning for example their relationship to their husbands ('He said, if I get killed off, you just go right ahead and don't cry, [] but don't think of me').The third important incident is Montag's relationship to Faber, a very well educated and intelligent old professor who encourages him in his assumption that reading books is important for everyone. Faber wants Montag to find out what is the truth and to make his own decision. Beatty just tries to convince Guy that reading is a scourge and that everyone has to obey and accept the political system when there's another alarm; they jump into the car and drive to  the house of Guy Montag. There Beatty gives Montag a roasting, provokes him very much and in a way wants Guy to kill him and so Montag does; he burns his boss.

Montag is totally confused and bewildered, he nearly gets knocked down by a car (the car doesn't drive over Montag who lies on the road for fear of having damaged a car, which is significant of this society, too), meets Faber who tells him to pour alcohol over his body so that he can't be caught by the mechanical hound, gives him new clothes and tells him the way to a hidden place. Montag follows Faber's instructions and finally arrives at a place where some bums ('living books') live; they tell him about their world view and the fact that every one of them knows the plot of one book very well. Montag decides to be a Book of Ecclesiastes and also sees an interesting example for the propaganda of the politics on TV: A scene's shown where another, innocent and harmless Montag is killed by the police. The predicted and dreaded atomic war starts, and an interesting scene is described: A bomb detonates in the town where Mildred, who apparently betrayed her husband and left him, lives, and so the TV-set breaks down Mildred sees her empty and unreal smile on the black TV-screen and of course she's shocked.

'And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.'

Interpretation and Themes:

1) The emptiness of modern mass culture

People are kept from thinking by the prohibition of books and stupid TV programmes. Even newspapers are made like comic books. There is not much communication between persons and if, it is very superficial. Nobody is interested in problems of others and can expect that others understand his problems. If one is despaired, he does not get any help apart from sleeping pills.

2) The prohibition of books

Books are forbidden because they obviously make people unhappy. Beatty says that the people in those never really lived and - even worse - all philosopher's works are contradictionary and therefore there is no use reading them. This is even drummed into the small children's heads. Probably the real reason for the prohibition is that the

Government wants to keep the people naive and superficial because they want to rule absolutely and uncontested.

3) The fate of 'thinking' people

If anybody is different from the others, he quickly becomes an outsider. For example Clarisse: she isn't at all interested in the 'family' but in her environment. She is the only one to realize the insignificant incidents in nature which makes her unpopular with other people. She probably became a teacher because she wants the children to think different from their parents who have become zombies - only thinking about their well-being and their entertainment. Because the pupils use to have fun in her lessons, she is dismissed from her job.

4) Montag's change of mentality

At first, Montag is very content with his job. He doesn't know anything better. Nobody has taught him to think about his life until he meets Clarisse who asks him if he is happy. Because he becomes interested in what makes people read books though it is so dangerous and though it is said to make one unhappy, he starts reading 'David Copperfield' by Charles Dickens. He is so keen on books that he spends every spare minute reading.