Summary of work

Bradbury describes a future where the books are burned by the firemen. One of them, Montag, is put one day to withdraw books from the destruction. Then begin a discovery of an unknown world, dissimulated by the media and censured by the company, in which Montag meets an young girl Clarisse McClellan melancholic person (in opposition to his wife endoctrinée by televised propaganda), an old man former professor, and finally an itinerant community people living in margin of the asepticized company (man-books), people knowing whole books by heart to save them lapse of memory to which condemned a consuming company to the bottom more barbarian than all cruelties.

Behind each book, there is thus a man, and in this exceptional situation, each dissident becomes a book, giving again a direction with the idea that the book is an living being, a being which has its own life. Montag discovers, through its meetings, how the literature makes it possible to share its questions, its anguishes, its passions. The literature, it is the life; on the other hand, the modern media life is presented like a simplified life, removed from its asperities, a hollow and monotonous life, which unconsciously leads the beings to despair and the suicide. This work could almost apply in the company in which we live today, a company where the media and publicity are voted by plebiscite in the place of the simple things of the life and humanity.

Work in its context

The Science fiction

The Years 1920/1950 mark with the E. - U. the first golden age of the science fiction. The `movement' combines novels and news, published in the forms of episodes in magazines and films ( Metropolis , Fritz Lang, 1927), which often remained in the memories for their special effects. At the time the SF summarizes itself however with a literature of station. It is about the 50 qu years' emerged principal writers SF (Lovecraft, Asimov…) and in particular Bradbury. He dissociates himself however by a more poetic style and an often pessimistic vision of the company of today and enough anti-scientist.

The Maccarthisme

In 1952, America is in the middle of the Maccarthisme. Thus, the virulence of the senator Joseph MacCarthy puts a term at the career of many writers and scenario writers, often friendly of Bradbury. The climate of paranoia is all the more heavy as the facts are voluntarily deformed and placed at the disposal of the public.

Work analyzes

The title

Fahrenheit 451 : `temperature to which paper ignites and is consumed.'
In fact, the title evokes two aspects in the way in which one burns a book:

Of course, spectacular the Autodafé S organized by the firemen…
… but also the fact that the reading is made impossible by the atrophy of any interest for the literary thing.

The kind

Against-Utopia : (Dystopie) the kind projects in the future of the facts of topicality by amplifying them for their timeless; work thus belongs to the kind of the Apologue.

Theses of work

A possible allegory: the Maccarthisme

a judgment of the maccarthism : work presents many common points with the situation to the USA in 1952; indeed, in work, the intellectuals are eliminated by the denouncement from their neighbors with an aim of ensuring the national security (only one word => not of birth of protest movements) and the `common happiness'.

The description of an apocalyptic company

a dehumanized company : the company described by Fahrenheit 451 watch that many human values sank; the love, since Montag and his wife do not remember any more their first meeting, the intelligence it also sank; indeed, people are satisfied with the official opinion and even the `guards of the truth', like Beatty, do not include/understand what they say, since according to them, the culture and the dialog summarize themselves with an exchange of quotations. Moreover, even the communication sank; indeed, each one shown an exaggerated individualism. People are become again of the children, they live in the immanence and want to only act: ` people do not speak about nothing '. Lastly, one can say that this company is become again primitive, since it practices the worship of violence, in the name of happiness.
the failure of a company of happiness : the company presented by Fahrenheit 451 is a priori perfect, since people who live there are happy, as Beatty in its speech explains it. However, this is only one illusion. Indeed, as of the first pages, Montag realizes that it is not happy. Unconsciously, Mildred knows that it is not happy, since it tries to put an end to its days while committing suicide using sleeping pills. Moreover, its case is not exceptional: ` Of the cases as that one has had some so much for a few years. '
a machiavelic company : Under cover to propose happiness with people, it benefits from it to sell a crowd of products to them; thus, Montag was put in a delicate financial position to be able to offer to his wife her mural television; however, the system also benefits from their unconsciousness to sell things much more important to them, like a president or a war.

What because emergence of such a company

misdeeds of the emergence of a mass culture : like describes it the fireman Beatty, the emergence of such a company was made possible only by the emergence of a mass culture, facilitated by the deliquescence of the school system; ` the cinema and the radio, store them, the books are levelled by bottom in a vast soup '. People ignored the culture and preferred to make sport, to look at television…
the absence of mobilization of the intellectuals : the situation was also made possible by the fact that the intellectuals as Faber did not mobilize themselves: ` I saw where one went, a long time ago of that. I did not say anything. I am one of these innocent which could have raised the voice when nobody wanted to listen to the `guilty'. ' One can consider that this message is a call to the community of the intellectuals so that they are mobilized against the analphabetisation of the company.

Solutions/the opinion of Bradbury on happiness

the failure of the revolution : According to Bradbury, to foment a revolution to try to reverse the process is dedicated to the failure; indeed, the mode is too powerful, moreover, Montag is made take. But, more than dangerous, such an attempt is ineffective, as implies it the title of the part where the revolution is described ( the sieve and sand ). The revolutionary message (sand) would not be listened by the population (the sieve), obnubilated by television.
a humanistic vision of the man and world : Bradbury believes however that the hope should be kept, because a company as that which it depicts is not viable ; indeed, it lost the guerre ; should be waited better times. Moreover, all can recommencer ; ` it is what the man has of marvellous, it is never let gain by the discouragement '. Lastly, for him, happiness consists in enjoying the happinesses lavished by nature and not happinesses artificiels : ` Looks at the world, it is more extraordinary than all the dreams manufactured or bought in factory. '

In short

Adaptations

François Truffaut made of it a film, left in 1966, with Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring (cf Fahrenheit 451 ). This incursion of Truffaut into the Science-fiction at the same time enables him to explore a plausible future and to denounce the risks of the technical projections in a totalitarian mode. Part of its childhood, marked by its love of the books and the Nazisme which burned these books in the streets appear.
a news adaptation of the novel is announced for 2007 realized by Frank Darabont.
To think of the film Fahrenheit 9/11 palm of gold in Cannes, Michael Moore which explicitly referred there: the title is inspired owing to the fact that the cry of alarm to launching to the company abêtie is not made any more by paper (and thus intellectuals) but by this event of the September 11th, 2001 which must make it possible the population not to vote for George Walker Bush with the presidential elections of 2004 (what was a failure on this side). Moore considers that the American intellectuals of left betrayed their mission. Ray Bradbury expressed its anger with the fact that Moore has pastiche the title of its novel without its permission, but it cannot prosecute it because it had not placed the title under Copyright.
a cartoon of Donald Duck (appeared in Mickey Parades ) pastiche the novel under the title of the Brigade of Silence (in French version). In this history, Donald belongs to a brigade of firemen who must burn all the Musical instruments under the order of Picsou which claims that the music makes sad.

See too

External bonds

Erwelyn.com very complete Bibliography and catalog of films on the anti-utopian future companies such as Fahrenheit 451 (news, novels, data base, Romance youth, anthologies, cinema, TV…)
Critical of '' Fahrenheit 451 '' on Psychovision.net
Biblioweb
'' Fahrenheit 451 '' in audio book.

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