"Fahrenheit 451" Question 7

What techniques does the author use to engage the audience and make the story effective?  Give examples to support your analysis (mystery, humor, symbolism, suspense, etc.).  Ray Bradbury uses uniqueness to his advantage here.  There are not that many futuristic books of this type.  Well, there is "1984," which I did not like at all.  Just saying.  BUT.  "Fahrenheit 451" and "1984"  are both very similar in the aspect that they are set in the future and encompass the world in lost state where everything that was once right is now wrong and everything that was once wrong is now right.  Well, I guess that's what it seems like at least.  That is a bit of an exaggeration I suppose, but there are a whole lot of corruptions in both novels.  Back to the point!  Ray Bradbury made a story line that people of that time had not ever even fathomed.  They were infatuated with their new toys (televisions) and never stopped to contemplated what they were sacrificing in exchange for their new toys.  "Fahrenheit 451" went against what everyone was thinking at the time, which was "Ooooooooooo!  New TV!  Must have!  Must watch at all hours of the day!  Never to read again!"  Then you have Ray Bradbury throwing back at you a story were firefighters no longer just put out the fires, but they start them, too, and made everyone stop and think.  It must have been pretty hard for people to not have to see what this book was about.  Ray Bradbury also used a lot of symbolism in "Fahrenheit 451."  A big one was heat.  Not only is the title about a very high temperature, but we have people and houses incinerated, people get angry and represent heat, in the end Montag discovers that fire can provide a good source of heat for good, not destruction.  Heat is alluded to multiple times and it is very enthralling and interesting to see all the different ways that Ray Bradbury does it.  



Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. Print.