The Significance of Symbolism to Support the Purpose of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

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Recommended: Similarities in fahrenheit 451 to our society in part one

The book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury tells the tale of a future society which outlaws books. This book has a lot of symbolism and the symbols used in the text help support what the purpose of the book is, being to avoid conformity and not to let society become uniform. This book fights for individuality and shows just how important that is by displaying the consequences of destroying this characteristic.

The purpose of the book is to prevent an unfavorable future where society is all conformed and everyone is the same. To prevent the destruction of individuality is the purpose of Fahrenheit 451. In Bradbury’s words “I wasn’t trying to predict the future” and he adds on “I was trying to prevent it.” (Qtd. In Miller). His words showing what he intended for this book to do. When the book was published there were a lot of technology advancements and Bradbury was trying to give his opinion on these changes and it is possible he was fearful of change (Historical Context: Fahrenheit 451). This is evident in the book itself. He did this with his word choice and language (Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaption). The setting of the book is a society in the future where books are outlawed and everyone is relatively the same. Bradbury is making a commentary on the way society is and how it is progressing. He is using this strategy to prevent society to go to the extreme like is presented in his work. Bradbury uses this stressed setting in his book to show how bad things can get and overwhelm his reader into realizing how awful this future would be. With concepts such as the multiple views of fire and its meanings in this novel showing how Bradbury stressed this future.

In this book symbolism is very prominent. Bradbury us...

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... 451 and seeing the symbols in the book it is obvious that the symbols are used to support the moral. An example of one of these symbols is fire. Fire is used as both the creator and the destroyer in the book and is the most important symbol of all because of how often it appears. Bradbury uses this symbol and others to make the future seem bad and to try to make the audience want to change so the future changes as well.

Works Cited

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Del Ray Books. 1953. Print

O'Callahan, Molly. "Message of "Fahrenheit 451" still is relevant." (2009): n. pag. Web. Newspaper source. Ebsco host 10 Dec 2009.

"Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaption." Book Review 256.28 (2009): 42. Web. Article. OneFile 10 Dec 2009.

"Historical Context: Fahrenheit 451." EXPLORING Novels. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center - Gold. Web. 14 Mar. 2010.

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