Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Fahrenheit 451 review- Matthew

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel set in a gloomy futuristic United States.  Written in 1953, the way Ray Bradbury introduces futuristic concepts with such accuracy deserves a lot of praise. In the novel everyone is weak-minded; they don't want to have to solve the troubles of the world. They imagine it is far easier to live a life of seclusion and illusion - a life where the television is reality. His writing probably caused a lot of controversy, especially in the height of the cold war; and his strong view on the future is believably on the right direction.

Bradbury uses a metamorphisis of Montag as the main character. At the start a communistic fireman who burns books, then an emotionally detached nobody, and after, a rebellious murderer escaping from the city. Ray's imagery pervades through the novel with nature as Clarisse, and a lot of personification and comparisons of mirrors, fire, water, phoenix, and salamanders. Beatty, the fireman captain is used as the main threat to Montag's plans as well as the mechanical hound. 

After Montag's final confontation with Beatty, we see him running for his life, evading the omnipresent menace of the mechanical hound and the city.

An incredible classic (I think a classic is a story whose story and meaning transcends time and place), just a shame there is no sequel.

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