Symbolism is a major literary device that helps people see a book through symbols that often have a deeper meaning. A symbol is used to explain something in a different way, using images, objects, etc. instead of just saying it in words. As you search for a deeper meaning in a work of art or literature it can help you understand the authors intentions and the deeper significance of a work. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, symbols help reinforce the major themes of the book.
Fire and flames have been used as symbols by many authors. Fire is representative of Montage. He was a fireman who made fires rather than put them out. He was around them all the time, whether it was around a campfire or burning down a house. Montag and fire were very close and almost part of each other. In the beginning of the book Montag is shown to love fire, It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. (3) He didnt perceive it to be bad and destructive thing. But in a larger sense, Montag did identify fire with warmth and spirit.
By the end of the book Montag had gone through a tremendous change. He looked at life in a new way. When Montag escaped from the world of book burning he discovered the book people sitting around a campfire in the woods, Montag walked slowly toward the fire and the five old men sitting there dressed in the dark-blue shirts. He did not know what to say to them. Sit down, said the man who seemed to be the leader of the small group. (147) the campfire represents warmth but it also represents the spirit and strength Montag had to start his new life as a book person.
A salamander is described in the book as a mythical lizard that can live in fire. The...
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...he book people are going to remember not only who they are, but the books that each one of them has held safely in their minds.
The phoenix is a well-known symbol of new beginnings. Montag realizes that fire and his life around fire had burned him. He wants to get out and start a new life which he does when he meets the book people. The phoenix was a bird in ancient mythology that burned to death and a new phoenix would rise from its ashes, representing rebirth and new beginnings. Granger is talking about the phoenix when the city gets bombed at the end of the book, But every time he burnt himself, up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over
The phoenix also represents Montag and how his life represents constant destruction followed by new beginnings coming out of the ashes.
Montag burned books. He likes his job and he knew that they started fires when the heard alarms. He never really questioned the fact that he had to burn books so instead he just does it. We've noticed that the society is screwed up but Montag does worry about it
For example, in the beginning of the novel Montag meets the young girl named Clarisse, Clarisse was a girl who questioned things such as life, the past, the present, and so on. She was also the first person to question Montag, asking him if he was happy, and why do firemen start fires now instead of putting them out. This is when the change of Montag himself begins. He becomes curious, and on one particular evening on duty he seizes a book from a burning fire and takes it home. However, Montag was not able
The first thing that really presents this mood in the story is when Montag and the rest of the firemen go to the old womans house. The woman refused to leave her house so Montag tried to convince her to leave. Montag went home later that night and felt sick. He didn’t believe burning books was a good way of doing things in the society. Another part in the story that causes trouble at the firehall is when the mechanical hound threatens and growls at Montag. Montag is scared someone might have set it to his scent. At the beginning of the story, Montag doesn’t mind his job, but as time goes on he starts to dislike it. Burning books burns peoples lives in Montag’s eyes. “I can’t do it, he thought. How can I go at this new assignment, how can I go on burning things? I can’t go in this place”(119). This quotation is towards the end of the story when Montag arrives at his house that they are going to search. Montag knows that he is going to be in a lot of trouble and doesn’t think it’s fair. Montag doesn’t thinking burning books is fair so they is a lot of trouble at Montag’s
One of the main reasons that Montag changed so drastically over the course of the book was his curiosity. Montag spent a lot of time thinking about his job and started questioning everything he was doing. He starts wondering why books need to be burned and why things are the way that they are. Montag takes up a special interest in book and why things are this way. “Was-was it always like this? The firehouse, our work?” Montag asks Beatty showing his curiosity. Montag’s curiosity is what drives him to find out everything he can about books, society and the way that things used to be. It is only natural for him to begin to question everything especially because his job involves burning hundreds of books a day yet he was never told why these books need to burned. Imagine destroying an object everyday, and being told how important your job is. Naturally you would want to know why you are destroying these objects. This is what happened to Montag and Beatty tried to explain it to him and tells him he shouldn’t be too curious about it “A natural error, curiosity alone,” Beatty also asks Montag “Listen to me, Montag. Once to each fireman, at least once in his career, he just itches to know what these books are all about. He just aches to know. Isn't that so?” Curiosity is a very natural emotion and even Beatty, who tries to explain things to Montag and discourages books, even admits to looking a few books but says “I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing!” I believe that this would make Montag even more curious.
Everyone loves to read right? Well, not in the little town that Guy Montag lives in. This is because the idea of reading is not accepted from their government. Montag is the protagonist in the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This novel provides us with a different perspective of reading, fire, and society. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury he uses symbolism such as fire and the phoenix to convey their town and how the government works.
In conclusion, symbolism is a greatly significant element in the novel. A symbol is something that stands for or represents something else. Fahrenheit 451 "probes in symbolic terms the puzzling, divisive nature of man as a creative/destructive creature" (Watt 1). A large number of symbols arising from fire emit various "illuminations on future and contemporary man" (Watt 2). The symbols in the novel add much insight and depth to the storyline. Ray Bradbury uses various consequential symbols such as fire, burning, the Mechanical Hound, and hands in Fahrenheit 451.
First Montag changes from his conversation with Beatty (the fireman captain) and burning books and why they do it when he say the woman willingly have herself burn. The support is ¨You, weren't there, you didn't see¨ he said. here must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there. and you don't stay for nothing.¨ (Bradbury pg51) For example this is how the parts of text from the book because of the impact it creates on Montag into changing his view on literature. The reason behind this conversation is the fact that they burn books for a job and someone sacrificed their life for books willingly and then makes Montag questions books.
...ich is, whether firemen long ago ever put out fires instead of setting them. This contributes to the story plot that Montag has a some extent of enlightenment and he eagers to know the truth.
When Montag meets Clarisse, his neighbor, he starts to notice that there is more to life than burning books. Montag states, “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I have used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of those books” (Bradbury 49). It begins to bother Montag that all he has done for the past years is burn books. He starts to rethink his whole life, and how he has been living it. Montag goes on to say, “It took some men a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! It is all over” (Bradbury 49) Before, Montag never cares about what he has been doing to the books, but when he begins to ignore the distractions and really think about life he starts to notice that he has been destroying some other mans work. Montag begins to think more of the world
“Behind his mask of conformity, Montag gradually undergoes a change of values. Montag realized his life had been meaningless without books” (Liukkonen). In the beginning of the novel, Montag said, “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 3). For most of his life, Montag conformed just like the other members of society. He set things on fire because it was his job and did not question whether or not it was the right thing to do. Throughout the story, however, he grew to find and voice his own opinions and resisted the conformity that his society stressed. When Montag had to decide whether or not to burn Beatty to death, he proved himself by not giving in to what was expected. He killed the captain of the police department, which was an entirely defiant act (Bradbury
In conclusion, Fire has 3 different meanings which lead you to new thinking and insight towards the world. Fire represents change which is shown through Montag’s symbolic change from using fire to burn knowledge into using fire to help him find knowledge; fire can represent knowledge as demonstrated through Faber, and fire can represent rebirth of knowledge as demonstrated through the phoenix. Overall fires representation is not one of destruction but one of knowledge, thinking, new insight, and acknowledgment.
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by author Ray Bradbury we are taken into a place of the future where books have become outlawed, technology is at its prime, life is fast, and human interaction is scarce. The novel is seen through the eyes of middle aged man Guy Montag. A firefighter, Ray Bradbury portrays the common firefighter as a personal who creates the fire rather than extinguishing them in order to accomplish the complete annihilation of books. Throughout the book we get to understand that Montag is a fire hungry man that takes pleasure in the destruction of books. It’s not until interacting with three individuals that open Montag’s eyes helping him realize the errors of his ways. Leading Montag to change his opinion about books, and more over to a new direction in life with a mission to preserve and bring back the life once sought out in books. These three individual characters Clarisse McClellan, Faber, and Granger transformed Montag through the methods of questioning, revealing, and teaching.
First symbolism is blood, where it presents the human being’s repressed soul and sadness. Second symbolism is “The Hearth and the Salamander” as to represent the fire’s dominance at the beginning of Montag’s life and how it eventually bring sorrow upon him. Third symbolism is phoenix where it’s rebirth refers to the cyclical nature of human history and the collective rebirth of humans and Montag’s spiritual resurrection. Where the city was ruined at the end as the result of human relies technology and not gaining knowledge from books. Throughout the development of the novel, Ray Bradbury uses three symbolisms to represent different ideas of destructions of life without books and if human in the future relies technology to bring them
The first of all, Montag loses his control over his own mind. At the beginning of the story, he meets a beautiful girl called Clarisse. She is a peculiar girl who wonders about the society and how people live in there. She tells Montag the beauty of the nature, and also questions him about his job and life. Though he has been proud of being a fireman, Clarisse says, “I think it’s so strange you’re a fireman, it just doesn’t seem right for you, somehow” (21). Montag feels “his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other” (21) by her words. Everything Clarisse says is something new to him and he gradually gets influenced a lot by this mysterious girl. Actually, the impact of the girl is too significant that his mind is taken over by her when he talks with Beatty, the captain of the firemen. “Suddenly it seemed a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, ‘Didn’t firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?’” (31). His mind is not controlled by himself in this part. He takes of Clarisse’s mind and it causes confusion within his mind. It can be said that this happening is an introduction of him losing his entire identity.
Light, especially fire, and darkness are significantly reoccurring themes in Fahrenheit 451. Guy Montag, the main character, is a fireman, but in this futuristic world the job description of a fireman is to start fires wherever books are found; instead of putting them out. Montag takes a journey from a literary darkness to a knowledgeable light. This journey can be compared to the short story Allegory of the Cave by Plato, in which a prisoner experiences a similar journey. An example of light, in reference to knowledge, occurs just after Montag meets Clarisse for the first time. "When they reached her house all its lights were blazing" (9). Since Montag had rarely seen that many house lights on, I interpreted those lines as saying "that house is full of knowledge and enlightenment; not like the rest of the houses around here which are always dark." Clarisse went on to explain to Montag that her mother, father, and uncle were just sitting around and talking. This was also something that wasn't very commonplace in the city. Fire is an important element of symbolism in Fahrenheit 451. Fire consumes minds, spirits, men, ideas, and books. Fire plays two very different roles in this book. The role of a destructive, devouring, and life ending force, and the role of a nourishing flame.