Allusions: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451: Allusion Essay Imagining a society that sets limits to a person’s life and prohibits them from being independent can be difficult. In this novel, people live in a society where they are not allowed to think independently and literature is banned. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, is a very fascinating novel about a fireman named Guy Montag who takes pride in his job which is to burn books. Montag meets Clarisse, a seventeen-year old girl who changes his way of looking at the world and makes him ponder about whether he is happy with his job. Throughout this novel Montag changes the way he feels about his job and goes against it. Allusions are relevant in this novel and play a major role supporting the different themes. In the book Dover Beach, Montag reads Mildred and her friends a poem that includes significant allusions that support a main theme. When Montag reads, “But now I only hear/ Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” (100) it supports the theme of the change in there society. It means that now there is no life left in their society and all that remains is their sadness. The last line of the poem Montag reads is, “Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/ Where ignorant armies clash by night” (100) refers to their current situation which is the war that is going on. It also supports the theme of them not having emotions because Mrs. Phelps didn‘t worry about her husband being at war but, after hear the poem she realized the in which she was in. The bible is also mentioned to support the themes in this novel. When Captain Beatty is at the women’s library he tells her, “You’ve been locked here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel” (38) referring to the theme that books cause confusion. When building the Tower of Babel, God created many languages to keep them from reaching the top. In the novel, it is similar because the fireman were trying to get rid of the books so people wouldn’t think and have thoughts or