Fahrenheit 451

1. Fahrenheit 451 An Introduction

2. Historical Context • World War II had ended only a few years before • Era of McCarthyism • Threat of nuclear warfare loomed • Many Sci-Fi books and movies reflected this fear

3. Predict or Prevent? • Bradbury claimed he was trying to “prevent the future”. • He did foresee many future developments: • Walkmans, earbuds, big-screen and interactive t.v., rise in violence, growing illiteracy, condensation of info into “sound bites”

4. Settings • Historical Setting • Physical Setting • Social Setting

5. Themes To Watch For • Individual self-expression is important. • Violence is self-destructive. • Mindless pleasure seeking and materialism make for an empty life. • Humanity should preserve and value the culture of the past.

6. More Themes • Humanity has the ability to be reborn or revived. • In the wrong hands, modern technology can be dangerous. • Commercialism can erode spiritual values. • People lose their humanity when not able to communicate and interact with each other on a personal level.

7. Symbols To Investigate • Fire • Burning • Water • The salamander • The Mechanical Hound • Seashells • Parlor Walls • Titles of each section

8. Names • Guy Montag • Guy Fawkes? • Name of a paper company • Clarisse • Form of Clara, from the Latin for “bright” • Clarisse is often associated with a brightness different from that of a fire • Faber • Name of a pencil company

9. Fire Imagery • Many cultures have gods associated with fire • Egyptian goddess Sekhet • Many myths try to explain the origin • Greek myth about Prometheus stealing fire from the gods • Scientists used to believe all matter was made of the 4 elements: fire, earth, water, & air

10. Connections & Background Info: The Hearth and the Salamander • Ben Franklin helped organize America’s first fire company and founded its first circulating library. • Franklin was also a writer and printer who believed in free speech and press.

11. Connections & Background Info: The Hearth and the Salamander • Dante: Dante Alighieri was an Italian poet who wrote The Divine Comedy • Jonthan Swift: Author of Gulliver’s Travels • Marcus Aurelius: Roman philosopher and emperor • Hamlet: You know this one! • Little Black Sambo: children’s book with racial stereotypes that are offensive • Uncle Tom’s Cabin: novel that condemns slavery

12. Section II The Sieve and the Sand

13. Connections & Background Info: The Sieve and the Sand Authors mentioned by Montag: • Thomas Jefferson • Henry David Thoreau: author of famous essay on civil disobedience, and Walden.

14. Henry David Thoreau • Civil Disobedience (Resistance to Civil Government) is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that was first published in 1849. • It argues that people should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. • Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican/American War. • Walden • The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, and manual for self reliance • He hoped to isolate himself from society to gain a more objective understanding of it • Simple living, self-reliance, • Transcendentalist.

15. Connections & Background Info: The Sieve and the Sand Texts: • “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold -Reflects a personal sense of isolation and doubt. Montag does not read aloud the first two stanzas.

16. Connections & Background Info: The Sieve and the Sand Texts: • The Bible: • Montag attempts to read a portion of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount that criticizes materialism. • Another character reads to Montag from the Book of Job, about a man whose faith is tested by a series of great calamities. • The Bible has often been a target of censorship. • When the New Testament was 1st transalted into English by William Tyndale, copies were seized and burned. (He was also burned at the stake as a heretic.)

17. Connections & Background Info: The Sieve and the Sand Beatty’s Quotes and Paraphrases: • Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice • “Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.” • “He doth nothing but talk of his horse.” • “The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

18. Section III Burning Bright

19. Connections & Background Info: Burning Bright William Blake’s “The Tyger” • Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

20. Connections & Background Info: Burning Bright • “Old Montag wanted to fly near the Sun and ... he's burned his wings” • Daedalus and Icarus

21. Connections & Background Info: Burning Bright • “You think you can walk on water” • There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm’d so strong in honesty that they pass by me as an idle wind, which I respect not” • Julius Caesar, IV, iii

22. Connections & Background Info: Burning Bright • Thomas Hardy: British novelist & poet • Charles Darwin: Survival of the fittest • Aristophanes: Ancient Greek playwright

23. Connections & Background Info: Burning Bright • “Mr. Lincoln”: yes, it’s Abraham Lincoln • Machiavelli: The Prince • The Phoenix