Prepare for your Section 1 Quiz over F451

1. Prepare for your Section 1 Quiz over F451 Pen or pencil is all you need

2. Journal Write about a book that opened new doors for you. If a book had a profound impact on you, explain why.

3. The author The author’s life can inform & expand the reader’s understanding of a Novel because authors often integrate their personal experience into a story. Fahrenheit 451 is, in some ways, the author’s tribute to the role that books and libraries have played in his life. After all, Bradbury wrote hundreds of works (novels, stories, screenplays, essays, and poems) with only a high school education and a worn out library card. However, while we more fully understand the book as we learn about the author, the artistry of the novel does not succeed or fail based on the author’s life.

4. Further readings • Extra reading to learn more about “Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 and Censorship, Bradbury and His Other Works, and The Fifties” are posted on my website. • Interview- • http://www.raybradbury.com/images/video/about_freeDOM.html

5. Setting the time • Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction novella set in a future version of the United States. • It was first published in 1953, a time of great prosperity for a large group of Americans. • World War II had brought the country out of the Depression. Manufacturing and production increased. • Two things that were produced in large numbers, and that changed the face of America, were the television and the automobile. • By 1954 (the year after the release of Fahrenheit 451),55% of United States households had televisions. • By 1962, television sets could be found in 90% of United States homes.

6. Setting the time • Television changed the way people interacted. Rather than talking to neighbors as a form of entertainment, people began to stay in their homes and watch their favorite television programs. • The 1950s were also a time in which the automobile became extremely important to America. • In 1947, still in the aftermath of World War II and industry’s retooling for peacetime, 3,300,000 automobiles were produced in the United States. • By 1953 (the year of Fahrenheit 451’s release), production had more than doubled. • The year 1949 also witnessed the introduction of the high-compression V8 engine, allowing for faster and more powerful automobiles, and setting off America’s decades-long love affair with speed and power.

7. Bradbury’s Concerns • Ray Bradbury, already a noted science fiction author, became concerned about the dangers he felt television and automobiles presented to a stable society. • Fahrenheit 451 is the book that came out of Bradbury’s vision of the future. • In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury speculates that things intended to make life easier and more pleasant—cars, mass media—may actually rob people of the ability to think and relate to one another.

8. F451 Themes • Censorship: Why are books banned in the future? • Two Groups • Factors that lead to a general lack of interest in reading. Popularity of competing forms of entertainment (tv, radio)- to much stimulation now with fast cars, loud music and advertisement that disallows for concentration. Condensed books. • Factors that make people actively hostile towards books. ENVY. People don’t like to feel inferior to those who have read more than they have. • Knowledge vs Ignorance: The fireman’s duty is to destroy knowledge and promote sameness. Who makes Montag doubt this so far?

9. Motifs Motif- Recurring structures, contrasts, or lit devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes • Animal and Nature Imagery • This imagery pervades the novel • Animal- ironic- although this society is obsessed with technology and ignores nature, many frightening mechanical devices are modeled after or named after animals- electric-eyed snake, Mechanical Hound • Nature- presented as a force of innocence and truth- Clarisse’s love (taste the rain)

10. Symbols • Blood- symbolic of a human being’s repressed soul • Montag “feels” his thoughts circulating in his blood • Mildred- whose soul has been lost- remains unchanged when her poisoned blood is replaced with fresh, mechanically administered blood • “The Hearth and the Salamander” • Hearth- fireplace- traditional symbol of home • Salamander is one of the official symbols of the fireman (firetruck name) • Both have to do with fire (hearth because heats home; salamander bc of ancient beliefs that it lives in fire and is unaffected by flames • (2 more towards the end): The Phoenix and Mirrors

11. Discussion The novel begins:“[I]t was a pleasure to burn.” • Why does Bradbury start the novel in this way? • Why might it be more pleasurable to burn books rather than read them?

12. Discussion • What are the differences between Montag’s life and Clarisse’s life.

13. Arts and Culture • Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953, the year the Korean War ended. • The Cold War, meanwhile, had hardened into a standoff. In 1952 the U.S. tested a hydrogen bomb, and the U.S.S.R. followed suit a year later.

14. Arts and Culture discussion Montag’s television includes headphones called “seashells.” The “wall to wall circuit” allows Mildred to enter the “play” and, therefore, the television programming. How does the technology within the novel compare to our current technology? In the first pages of the novel, does technology improve the quality of life for Montag and his wife, Mildred? Why or why not?

15. Narrative and Point of View • First-person narration wraps the reader into the perspective of the main character, as this person tells us, first-hand, about her or his experiences. • This voice uses the first-person “I” to recount her or his adventures and is almost always personally invested in how the drama unfolds. • Bradbury employs a third-person narrator in Fahrenheit 451. Third-person narration uses “he” or “she” to tell the story and establishes a greater distance between narrator and audience, as an outside observer relates events. • Third-person narration may or may not be omniscient. An omniscient third-person narrator knows the thoughts and movements of every character.

16. Narrative and Point of View • Fahrenheit 451 is not strictly omniscient; we know only Montag’s movements and thoughts. The narration follows Montag like a camera, and the reader is never allowed into the lives of other characters, except for what they say to him. This inevitably increases our sympathy for Montag.

17. Now, you… • Class discussion… • Ask questions, pose thoughts, whatever you want about section 1 • Section 2 due 8/19 for a quiz and discussion 