Fahrenheit 451

Mildred Montag is a prime example of the author's portrayal of a manipulative, stiflingly suppressive society. Completely indifferent to the moral absence in her own world, Mildred is a product of her society. She advocates the burning of books and other illegal materials, obsesses over the TV's she's convinced are her family, and shows absolutely no love for her husband. In fact, it is safe to say that Mildred did not know what love is. She and her husband are roommates, two bodies in coexistence, and nothing more. A passage on page 11 supports this; "He opened the bedroom door. It was like into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set. Complete darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the windows tightly shut, the chamber a tomb world where no sound from the city could penetrate" (Bradbury). Veiled as a description of his bedroom, the passage simultaneously provides insight into the relationship of Montag and Mildred -Empty, cold, dark, not unlike the very world in which they live. The one room in a couple's home that is to be considered sacred, warm, and seen as the place in which two people come together in love, is starkly portrayed here as something more akin to a prison. The world of Montag and Mildred is very much the same.

“Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them too. Five minutes after a person is dead he’s on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopter all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man’s a speck of black dust. Let’s not quibble over individuals with memoriums. Forget them. Burn all, burn everything, Fire is bright and fire is clean” (Bradbury 60).

Just as the character Beatty could be considered the instigating source of knowledge and bitter wisdom in Fahrenheit 451, he is simultaneously a lonely, hopeless, regretful person who has given up on a world he cannot change. In the passage above, Beatty explains to Montag the workings of their world. He explains that anything that is unappealing to one group or another must be destroyed (burned). As if man is a child to be silenced with a lollipop, he simply illustrates that anything sad, angering, confusing or disadvantageous is disposed of, made to be forgotten. To make people happy, take away all of their problems- make their lives meaningless. Reading between the lines, it would seem that Beatty questions this manipulative, controlling world. If nothing is ever complicated, sad, or difficult, then what are you living for? If there are no problems, if you are never sad, then you’ll never have the rewards of a problem solved, you’ll never grow from your mistakes and move one step closer in your discovery of who you are. In fact, you’ll never find out who you are; you might as well be your neighbor, your cousin, or someone you have never met. There is no distinction from one person to another. It is as if the world is full of brainless replicas, person after person who does not make decisions for them self, but have every single decision made for them.
Fire is used as the means of destroying every aspect of a free world- one with books, knowledge, and love. Indeed, it is the largest and most significant symbol in the novel. Described as “bright” and “clean,” it is ironic that something described so simply could be the ultimate tool of destruction. Fire has the capability to completely “cleanse” the world of anything combustible, and in doing this, in erasing all evidence of a world before, its “brightness” can be permanently blinding. In fact, describing fire in this simple way seems to create a disguised excuse, a friendly nudge that says “it’s okay, things will be better this way,” when in reality, the horrors fire is capable of creating would seem to lend more support to the belief that it is merely destructive.
Beatty emits a tone of bitter sarcasm in his statements here. He is, of course, speaking only truth, but he delivers his thoughts in such a way that you would never find them to be positive. For example, he mentions "taking your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator." This demonstrates his sarcasm clearly. He is mocking this government-- why bother fixing your problems when you can just make them disappear, turn them to ash. Beatty, who is a prominent, prized member of this very community, is clearly not in favor of it. His statement is a plea, a desperate call, his means of reaching out to Montag, begging him to take a stand, where he could not.

My overall opinion of Fahrenheit 451 was definitely varied. Never before had I read a science-fiction novel, so I have nothing to compare this work to. However, I don’t think the focus of the novel was supposed to be the science-fiction aspect as much as it was the futuristic setting, the portrayal of the world to come in a way we could never have thought of. This aspect, of course, was very intriguing. It is as if the people are living in Hell. They are mindless, thoughtless, fearful, poor souls who bow down like robots to their government. Mesmerized by giant room-filling TV’s which are their so-called “family,” it is not unusual for a person to stand in the TV room all day, staring at the TV, soaking in every bit of nonsense spoken. Whether truth or lies (and usually the latter), these people have been brainwashed to believe every ounce of it. At one point in the novel, a commercial was discussed in which Jesus Christ was selling toothpaste. Ridiculous as it sounded to me, it was simultaneously unnerving to see religion used in such a selfish, manipulative way. Devout believers do, of course, what they believe their God desires of them. If that be buying toothpaste, then why not? The fact that no other characters in the novel saw this to be ridiculous reminded me just how far gone their word had become.
Among the plethora of symbols to be found in Fahrenheit 451, I’m disappointed to state that I only initially recognized the most obvious one- rain. The cleansing power of rain washed away the blinding lies and nonsense of Montag's world, and brought to light his burning questions. I think it could be said that the young girl Clarisse could be considered the vessel for this cleansing. One of the “misfits,” Clarisse had been asking problematic questions ever since she was young. She did not understand the world in which she lived; miraculously, she had managed to see through the spoon-fed lies of her elders. Understanding the other symbols, however, after having read the novel, helps to reveal the true meaning of the work. For example, one symbol I never picked up on was the mechanical hound- a prime representation of the mechanized, controlled society in which Montag lived, one which sensed and disposed of knowledge, of questioning, of anyone who strayed from desired views. Another obvious symbol that I should have picked up on was books; the simultaneous embodiment of knowledge, freedom, and the human spirit, only to be burned among everything else undesirable.
What I did not like about this novel was the fact that some questions were left unanswered. For example, it would have been satisfying to hear why the society had become the way it was. How did the government manage to brainwash all of those people? If knowledge was unwanted, then how could their society progress educationally and technologically? Surely, knowledge is necessary for such advancements. Someone has to be smarter than someone else. That is to say, someone must be the knowledgeable, educated, and experienced architect or engineer who could create cars, buildings, and airplanes. My question was, how could the society progress at all, with all knowledge eliminated? Though I was frustrated on this point while reading, looking back, I don’t think these answers are necessary to uncover the author’s message. Though my inquisitive mind would have liked to understand every facet of the created world, it doesn’t matter so much how it got to be this way. What matters is that it is, that some way or another, this is the way the world has turned out to be, and what are we going to do about it? Once I realized this, I was able to look past my questions to the deeper meaning of the novel. I found this book to be a truly original, enjoyable, and creatively thought-out piece of literature. Like a mystery, it was fun to decipher symbols and read between the lines, something I had not ever had to do before. I truly enjoyed this book in which the answers were not handed to me, but deeper thinking and careful consideration was required to figure them out.