The Use of Literary Devices in Fahrenheit 451 (By Michelle Fan)

Fahrenheit 451 Literary Analysis

By Michelle Fan Have you ever imagined a world without books? You may cheer and think that everything would be simpler. But in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, time is set in the unknown future when the main character Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books, slowly discovers how empty and strange people’s lives become without books.

There is no more time to think. No more emotions. No more feelings of love and care.

In this book, the author Ray Bradbury uses literary devices such as metaphor, irony, and syntax to prove why books are needed.

In his book, Ray Bradbury uses metaphors and lots of comparisons to let readers find out how people can not be truly happy without books. Readers need to read between the lines because Bradbury’s words often contain double meanings. For example, after Montag returned home from work, “he felt his smile slide away…Darkness. He was not happy” (9). Even though Montag is able to look satisfied all day, by saying that his smile slides away at the end of the day, the author shows the audience that this is not true happiness. Later, the author compares Montag to “a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out” (9).

What seems like wonderful sights are fake. The author is also saying how if Montag keeps on burning like a candle, very soon there will be nothing left of him. Ray Bradbury describes, “[Montag] felt as if he had left a stage and many actors” (133).

Here, the people’s lifestyles are presented as a performance stage, where they show off how “happy” they are, but all the while they were probably just trying to lie to themselves and make themselves believe that they are truly leading wonderful lives.

All of the citizens, like talented actors, all seem absolutely fine on the outside. But actually, their hearts are rotting from emptiness. Without books and what they convey, this emptiness caused the people not to feel anymore. By using metaphors and other comparisons, Bradbury illustrates how people think that emptiness in life is normal.

By using irony, Ray Bradbury illustrates and emphasizes how everything turned abnormal without emotions and care. Clarisse is a young girl of seventeen, yet so much more mature in many ways. She saw through what even grownups had not seen—how this morbid society would not last. She is a sensitive person who reacts strongly with what is happening in the world. At Montag and Clarisse’s first meeting, Clarisse notices how Montag, like others, replies her with perfunctory. In one of their conversations, Clarisse comments how people’s fast lifestyles keep them from noticing the billboards. Clarisse points out, “You never stop to think…because [the

citizens] never see them slowly…” (6, 7). In this way, Bradbury uses Clarisse to point out the irony in the world. Clarisse states that people nowadays no longer communicate with sincerity. No one has enough time and patience to really understand others or pay close attention to the world. This made people unconcerned about the issues and allowed them to pretend they do not exist. For instance, in Fahrenheit 451, the city was going through a war. Strangely, none of the soldier’s wives are worried. They stay as shallow as ever, saying, “It’s always someone else’s husband dies, they say” (91). Likewise, the husbands are also detached, and say to their wives, “Be independent…don’t cry and don’t think of me …go right ahead and get married again…” (91). Society is choosing to ignore the problems instead of facing them. People fill their minds with silly thoughts as self-comfort. But the actual problem is how a lack of emotions and emptiness tore their hearts apart, even their closest relationships. They seemed so carefree and easy – being alive or dead are really the same to them.

Characterization is a way the author highlighted the theme. He confirms that the people’s meaningless lifestyles and their routines must be changed. Faber is a wise old professor whom Montag had met one day and made him rethink about the society’s situation. Faber comments, “[People] don’t know that this is all one huge blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that someday it’ll have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fire, as you saw it.” (100). By using Faber as a character, Bradbury helps Montag change his way of thinking. Also, Bradbury uses the metaphor of a “huge blazing meteor” to describe the lives of the people in Fahrenheit 451, which seemed so happy and unworried on the outside. “Pretty fire” was like what the people saw it as, splendid and not doing harm. But as Faber points out, one day reality is going to hit. It is impossible to stay like this forever. Another character who helps Montag change his way of thinking is Beatty. Beatty is the captain of the firemen. He was always confident and seemed to know everything. However, when Montag killed him with an alcohol gun, he did not strike back, protect himself, or do anything at all. Montag realizes, “Beatty had wanted to die…how strange, strange to want to die so much…” (116). Even Beatty was not struggling or trying to save his own life. What is the purpose of living like a dead person? Why should anyone bother living a hollow, empty life?

In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, metaphors, irony and characterization made the main idea clear – how without thoughts and feelings, lives would be empty. The people’s happiness was only a mask, a frail disguise. There is no time for anything or anyone anymore. People would not want to waste the millionth of second to absorb, to

really think over anything. There is no tenderness in the world – no one is in love anymore. And nobody cares about lives – even their own. Everything is meaningless.

The author reaffirms how thoughts and feelings are essential and a must, what we definitely could not live without. Without books to help us develop thoughts and feelings, life is meaningless.