Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451’s depiction of burning books has likely been the key to its sustained prominence in cultural memory. Book-burning can cause a visceral response as it is such a violent metaphor of degeneration, and has strong ties to the events of WW2. In line with this, the novel has come to stand as a reference to the evils of state-sponsored censorship. But Bradbury’s clever outline of society is one that has been shaped more by human nature. Short attention spans and shallow mental stimulation are shown to be the catalyst that led to book burning, not an effect of it. Society is shown to be appeased by content that appeals to immediacy, such as sports of all kinds, and a TV show about a ‘family’ which we can easily envisage as an immersive version of Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
This lifestyle is criticised by Clarice McClellan, a young girl who says that: People don’t talk about anything! … They name a lot of cars and or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. Guy Montag, a fireman tasked with the responsibility of burning books that are discovered by the fire department is influenced by McClellan to think about what books have to offer. When Montag’s wife overdoses on sleeping pills, she is not saved by medics, but by two ‘handymen’ who perform the procedure competently, yet with complete emotional remove, even smoking cigarettes. Montag thinks, There are billions of us and that’s too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. This sense of isolation is a hallmark of dystopian fiction, where characters become disillusioned with the state of their life and begin to realign their perspective of what they thought was acceptable or good, and thus remove themselves from the outlook of their peers.
The novel has a great direct voice of opposition to Montag through the character of Captain Beatty. He says to a woman who is electing to be burnt with her books: Where’s your common sense? None of these books agree with each other. You’ve been locked up here for years with a regular damned tower of Babel. Snap out of it! The people in those books never lived. Further on in the book Beatty explains more about how society was changed over time. He says that overpopulation caused media to have to appeal to larger audiences, which meant that minorities were served less and less and these minorities diminished in turn. The people in this play, that TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! Everything in the society is truncated so nothing unnecessary remains, nothing wastes time. More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don’t have to think, eh? Organise and organise and super organise super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Beatty goes on to claim that books create inequality because someone inevitably gets too smart and the other kids around start to hate him, causing an issue. There are other elements of his argument but he finalises with the comment: We (firefighters) stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. Don’t let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world.
There is much to Beatty’s character through the novel as he advocates extensively for the ideals of homogeneity. I enjoyed reading his slippery logic; the book would be nothing without this counterpoint. His character possesses a level of articulation which in my view makes him one of the more memorable antagonists of classic literature.
At this point in the story, Montag steals some books from houses and tries to work out how to use them. Bradbury illustrates this lack of comprehension in an interesting way, and it is a memorable representation to see how people could forget how to ‘work’ a book. Montag goes to meet Faber, a reclusive retired English Professor, who tells him: No, no, it’s not books at all you’re looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion picture and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. I love the way that Faber talks like this about not idolising books for the sake of it, which opposition to burning books may lead to. Books have the disposition to be claimed as authoritative in our world, despite their contents. He also spells out the direction that books and writing should go in. He thinks they need to have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. The book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. Bradbury is a writer who is well poised to deliver the meaning of the value of meaningful quality. Not only is the novel an amalgamation of different short stories he wrote and experiences he had, but he talks about the fact that while he was writing it in a library on a rentable typewriter he went through different books in the library and raced back downstairs: blushing with love, having found some quote here, another there to shove or tuck into my burgeoning myth. His writing style bears these influences in a sharp and eclectic way.
The second point Faber makes is for people to have leisure, and by this he means time to think. The outline of society in the novel is one characterised by short attention spans and immediate content. Compare these predictions to the state of the content we consume these days which comes in the ever-demonised form of social media, but also the increase in streaming services, apps and advertising. The novel points to our desire for simplicity and ease and as such its ostensible message of anti-censorship is revealed to be more about the weaknesses inherent in human nature. Life is remarkably complex and confusing, especially in the modern age. Books can help us come to terms with this and provide a roadmap for flourishing in spite of the elements of modern life that may appeal to our desire for simplicity and ease. Entertainment has it’s value for wellbeing, but being able to sit and think about something we have read is an important part of our development as people.
The third point that Faber makes is the capacity to act on what we read. At the end of the novel, Montag meets up with a group of intellectuals who have formed a camp in the forest outside the city. Among them are social scientists, philosophers, university lecturers and authors. Each of them have memorised an entire book that they hold as they wait for the opportunity for it to reach a version of society that will be receptive to it. One of the men says: You can’t make people listen, they have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them. I like the book because it points to the value of the writing in books but also the story leads to the people that books help produce: people with qualifications like the men in the camp.
As a criticism, Clarice McClellan is an example of a manic pixie dream girl, and as thus cheapens what could’ve been a better exchange between her and Montag. I am careful with the label, and use it after consideration, as I am in agreeance that it has been overused in society since its inception.
She is associated with the spontaneity and depth of thought which is linked to the natural world in the novel, as opposed to the technological. As soon as she has had the effect of fuelling a latent understanding of this distinction in Montag, she disappears, having served her purpose. Before McClellan disappears from his life, Montag feels extremely distant from his wife in a way that comes off as a representation of a typical period of acute estrangement in a long-term relationship. After the situation with McClellan though, he is spurred on to begin a more inspired time in his life, being more in touch with his own true self and he says to Millie that they should try reading the books to help get them out of the situation they are in as a couple. Although McClellan asks if he has ever thought of her as a daughter, and there is a lack of sexual connotation between the pair, this innocence further serves to convey a version of antiquated archetypal femininity, along with her being associated with the romantically pure version of nature compared against a tainted state of soulless technology, and the way her face and features are said to be akin to the nature of the moon, a common symbol of femininity. As such she is also an acceptable figure to align with the values of the first place the novel was published: as a serial in Playboy.
In the afterword, Bradbury mentions the conditions of the original publishing of the novel. A young Chicago editor, minus cash but full of future visions, saw my manuscript and bought it for four hundred and fifty dollars, all that he could afford, to be published in issues number two, three and four of his about to be born magazine. The young man was Hugh Hefner. My reaction to the fact that F451 was published in Playboy was: Isn’t Playboy a thoroughly sexist, objectifying, anti-feminist enterprise? Many opponents of the magazine would agree with these points, and further denounce Hugh Hefner as exploitative. So how is Fahrenheit 451, placed in the indubitable cannon of literary classics, beyond my comments about the use of Clarice McClellan as a MPDG, compatible with Playboy?
It was the design of Playboy to be open to the inclusion of such literary writing in a means of appealing to progressive readers of the time. Jazz, fashion, decorating and cooking tips, progressive politics and cutting edge interviews were other components included in the magazine. Among the Playmates, the approach of Playboy made them stand apart from the models in other magazines of the time who were depicted in a more degrading manner. Hefner utilised an approach that consciously humanised the models by putting them in recognisable settings, such as when they were getting ready for work, while also including biographical sketches and secondary photos showing them in their daily lives. By sexualising the ‘girl next door’, as she would come to be known, Hefner challenged the postwar cultural insistence that ‘good girls,’ confine their sexuality to married monogamy… Through the pages of Playboy, Hefner helped shift conversations about appropriate feminine sexuality — for better and for worse.
Although the magazine can be said to have challenged the conservative norms of the time and to have played a key role in changing American ideas and attitudes, its sexism is apparent in the way Hefner viewed traditional roles of masculinity and femininity. The fact that these views are posited in an intellectual way bears importance in the consideration of the themes of Fahrenheit 451 as a novel initially serialised by Playboy. In Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America: Hefner echoed concerns expressed in Life magazine, which attributed “America’s disturbing divorce rate,” in part to “wives who are not feminine enough and husbands who are not truly male.” In Hefner’s formulation, neither men nor women could find contentment without the clear sense of identity that came from these complementary, seperate roles. To be sure, he conceded, the postwar world was changing, but men and women had to adjust to it’s new circumstances without losing sight of their natural relationship to one another… Hefner saw the program of gender difference to which he was so firmly committed as a harmonious system of complementary roles for men and women, but it was also hierarchical, with men maintaining the dominant position in terms of status and power.
So we can see that Hefner’s worldview is blatantly misogynistic, but his views in total show a limited conception of the possible ways men and women may develop healthy identities toward each other alongside a fulfilling sexual life. Encountering such controversial and offensive viewpoints successfully requires a mentality that is fortified by a sense of its own competence in understanding the definitions of an argument. Beyond this the critical thinker must be at ease with the unease of the irresolution supplied by an immediate text. This approach is eliminated in the destruction of books for the sake of forsaking the possibility of one’s own opinion being rendered ambiguous or at worst, wrong. To admit to the existence of such content in the world is a brave step to take in combatting its legitimacy.
The writing feels like it was done in the manner Bradbury advises that it was: in a rushed way because he only had so much time to use a hired typewriter. At the end there are passages describing Montag’s experience of rushing thoughts as he is removed from the onslaught of modern life and moves among the slow ambulations of nature. Bradbury’s writing conveys this dual nature brilliantly: the frantic confusing, tech-world contrasted with the all-encompassing expressions of the natural world, both suffused with details. Above his desk Bradbury claims to have a sign that says, ‘don’t think.’ This direction has obviously given way to the text he has outputted for the novel, which is a complement and a criticism.
Favourite Quote: I paid for all this — how? Playing the stock-market of course, the last refuge in the world for the dangerous intellectual out of the job.
