“It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure
to see things eaten,
to see things blackened and changed.”
Fahrenheit 451 opens in a blissful blaze
- and before long,
we learn what’s going up in flames.
Ray Bradbury’s novel imagines a world
where books are banned from all
areas of life - and possessing,
let along reading them, is forbidden.
The protagonist, Montag, is a fireman
responsible for destroying what remains.
But as his pleasure gives way to doubt,
the story raises critical questions
of how to preserve one’s mind in
a society where free will, self-expression,
and curiosity are under fire.
In Montag’s world, mass media
has a monopoly on information,
erasing almost all ability
for independent thought.
On the subway, ads blast out of the walls.
At home, Montag’s wife Mildred listens to
the radio around the clock,
and three of their parlor walls
are plastered with screens.
At work, the smell of kerosene
hangs over Montag’s colleagues,
who smoke and set their mechanical
hound after rats to pass the time.
When the alarm sounds they surge
out in salamander-shaped vehicles,
sometimes to burn whole
libraries to the ground.
But as he sets tomes ablaze day
after day like “black butterflies.”
Montag’s mind occasionally wanders
to the contraband that
lies hidden in his home.
Gradually, he begins to question
the basis of his work.
Montag realizes he’s always felt uneasy -
but has lacked the descriptive words
to express his feelings in a society where
even uttering the phrase
“once upon a time” can be fatal.
Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world governed
by surveillance, robotics, and virtual
reality - a vision that proved remarkably
prescient, but also spoke to
the concerns of the time.
The novel was published in 1953,
at the height of the Cold War.
This era kindled widespread paranoia
and fear throughout Bradbury’s home country
of the United States, amplified by the
suppression of information
and brutal government investigations.