Fahrenheit 451 Analysis

6. Symbols are very important in Fahrenheit 451. Name three specific symbols and outline their references and meanings throughout the novel. Use specific examples from the text in your argument.

Throughout the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, symbols are very prevalent. Three major symbols that are present in Fahrenheit 451 are fire, the in-ear seashells and the hound. The plot of the book is that in a future time books have been banned due to them causing discrepancies in many people. The way that this ban is enforced is by having firemen who now instead of putting out fires, go and burn the book and the person’s house that had the books.

One of the very major symbols in the book is fire. In the book the main character, Montag is a fireman so it is his job to burn the books. In the beginning of the book Montag enjoys being a fireman. In the beginning it is Montag burning a house and it says: "Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. But soon after meeting a girl named Clarisse he starts to see his job as a fireman in a different way. In my opinion the fire represents the destruction of humanity. The burning of the books represents how Bradbury feels about our culture; how he thinks it is eroding. And the burning of the books symbolizes how as a culture we don't care enough about knowledge and slowly we are destroying our culture. This is proven in the part where Montag is talking to his friend Faber, who was a college professor. Faber says to Montag: "The whole culture's shot through. The skeleton needs melting and reshaping." Faber is saying that he feels that the culture is completely broken and it is in need of some major reshaping.

Another major symbol present in Fahrenheit 451is the use of in-ear seashells. During the time when Fahrenheit 451 is taking place the use of in-ear shells have become rampant. Now when you finish watching TV for the day you can insert you seashell in and still be enveloped in everything going on. The seashell use is most apparent in Montag's wife, Mildred. In one part where Mildred is listening to her seashell she is described as: "her Seashell was tamped in her ear again and she was listening
to far people in far places, her eyes wide and staring at the fathoms of blackness
above her in the ceiling." Because of her seashell use Mildred is almost impossible to communicate with and this angers Montag a lot. I feel that Bradbury uses the seashells as a symbol for how technology is slowly taking over our lives. In the book Mildred along with the rest of what seems to be the world use the seashells a lot. In the book Bradbury even writes about how Mildred listens to it while she sleeps: "His wife stretched on the bed, uncovered and cold, like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb, her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel, immovable. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning." I feel that Bradbury was portraying his feeling on technology with the seashells. I get the impression that he feels technology is too involved in our lives and it will just get worse and worse in the future.

A third symbol that Bradbury uses is the mechanical hound. In the book the fire station has mechanical hound that can be programed to anyone's specific smell and it will hunt you down and inject you with an extremely deadly chemicals. In the book Montag is very scared of the hound. He describes it as: "It was like a great bee come home from some field where the honey is full of poison wildness, of insanity and nightmare, its body crammed with that over-rich nectar and now it was sleeping the evil out of itself. “Throughout the book the hound plays a large role in Montag's fear as he leans more and more about the word of books. In my opinion the hound is a symbol of fear. Wherever Montag goes the thought of the hound is always looming over him, striking fear into him. When Montag goes on the run they get a hound from another district to come and follow him and on the TV station they say: “Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake. Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target..." This quote for me helps to show the symbolism of the hound. That wherever you are the hound is there to find you.

Throughout the book Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury uses symbolism to portray his points. The uses of these symbols help to really make the story much more meaningful. They make you think much harder about the book and really make the book much more powerful.