Fahrenheit 451, By Ray Bradbury: Character Analysis

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, shows us a society where knowledge is no longer pursued. Instead, the people pursued leisure and preferred ignorance. Bradbury wrote this after World War II. He feared that people would be swallowed up by the idea that everyone had to be the same, not forced by the government, but willingly. Throughout the book, the main character, Montag, goes through a change of mind and fights against societal standards. Ray Bradbury uses his characters to show that a society filled with self-centered people who prefer ignorance over knowledge will end in destruction.
Guy Montag lives in a world where books are burned and curiosity is discouraged. In the beginning, he wasn’t anything special, just another guy with the same
mindset as everyone else. In fact, he encouraged the burning of books. Montag worked as a firefighter, however, a firefighter’s job at this time isn’t what you think. They did the opposite, they started the fires. If someone was caught with books in their possession, the firefighters would be notified and they would burn the books. By doing so, they’re burning not just the paper and cover, they are also burning knowledge that can be used for the good of society.
Why and how did the burning of books start? One possible reason could be that their government banned books so that the people will be easier to control. However, the government isn’t seen much throughout the book at all. The citizens willingly abide and most would say books are useless. “So what good are your scribblings? This—we take them with us” (Doolittle 10.3-4). As said in this quote, knowledge that books contain can last forever. It can be beneficial in many ways. For example, the phrase, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it,” comes to mind. However, people of this society doesn’t understand that. They don’t care about the future or the past, only the present and themselves. For this reason, it seems that some morality is lost.
The worth of human lives is taken for granted. Suicides happen often yet nobody cares enough to pay attention to them, let alone prevent more from occurring. Everyone is too concerned with their own happiness and comfort to try and put in effort for someone else’s well-being. When we first met Mildred, we find she overdosed. As the operators arrive, you’d think they’d take the situation a bit more seriously. “’We get these cases nine or ten a night. […] You don’t need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour. Look’–– he started for the door–– ‘we gotta go. Just had another call on the old ear thimble’” (Bradbury 15-6). In this quote, the operator tells us how often these suicides occur. Yet they say it so nonchalantly. In fact, it even sounds like the machines were built just so these cases would be easier to handle, not for the concern of the people.
“Anyways, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It’s our third marriage each and we’re independent. Be independent, we always said. He said, if I get killed off, you just go right ahead and don’t cry, but get married again, and don’t think of me” (Bradbury 95). This was said by Mrs. Phelps, one of Mildred’s friends. With this quote, it shows that even the value of marriage is lost. Not only is the value of marriage gone, so is the value of family. “I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it’s not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch. It’s like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid” (Bradbury 96). This quote is from another one of Mildred’s friend, Mrs. Bowles. By comparing her children to laundry, it shows how much a human life is worth to Mrs. Bowles. I also can’t imagine there being much of a connection in this family with only seeing each other 3 times a month. “The world must reproduce, you know, the race must go on. Besides, they sometimes look just like you, and that’s nice” (Bradbury 96). Another quote from Mrs. Bowles, this seems to be her reason. Mrs. Phelps on the other hand doesn’t want children, period! She finds it crazy anyone would consider such a thing.
Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps are two good representatives of this society. By their words, you can see that in their society, many don’t appreciate happiness at a deep level. Mrs. Bowles benefits of having children is like her describing an object, not a human. People of this society also want things immediately and refuses to work for it which was shown by Mrs. Phelps. Most would avoid anything that might cause pain, emotionally or physically. If a society continues like this, it’ll be much easier to control and manipulate the people seeing that most wouldn’t put in much effort to fight against it. Rallying people up would be difficult as well, even if there was somebody who stood up. This allows for the society to become more and more corrupt until, eventually, it destroys itself.
Fear is a huge factor with how these societies become so corrupt. In Fahrenheit 451, it’s the fear of being different. In fact, that was how our main character, Montag was at first. Montag accumulated books from when he went out and burned them. It was revealed that he hid books in an air vent after encountering a woman who refused to leave her books and she decided to burn with it. At this point, Montag started to dispose of his façade. Then there’s the flip side, society’s fear. Montag was chased after being listed as a criminal. However, when they lost him, they fooled the public by finding another guy to replace Montag and arrest him instead. People didn’t like to be bothered or stressed so they reassured the public by catching a fake Montag, but the public doesn’t know that. The war is another topic the public doesn’t know much about. After Faber gave Montag the listening device, the radio says that a million men have been mobilized for war and that it’ll be a quick victory. The news is then cut off by music and Faber points out that they lied about the number of men mobilized because it’s sounds happier that way.
Fear also plays a part in Anthem.
In order for stability and peace, they’ve taken away individuality and technology. There are so many laws in place to control them and prevent any thought or curiosity. “But we must never speak of the times before the Great Rebirth, else we are sentenced to three years in the Palace of Corrective Detention” (Rand 19). These types of laws are put into place to prevent citizens from thinking too much or becoming too curious. If they’re too curious, they might break away from the system that they have established and influence others to do the same. This can cause a chain reaction. However, they don’t want change, they fear change and anything different from their own usual routine. So, to protect their own fears, the higher ups use fear to manipulate others. In order to do so, they’ve taken a part of their language and emotion has been limited. Everything is decided for them and consequences will be handed out if you do not follow what they tell you to do. In a way, this does make their society stable, however, there’s little to no development which makes them much more vulnerable to disease. With how slow their technological development is, I doubt there’s much advancement in medicine. If one person were to catch a deadly and unknown illness, the whole city might be wiped
out.
Shortly after Montag escaped the city, bombs left the city in shambles. This could’ve been prevented. The citizens might have been much more prepared and maybe even survived if they were told about the details of the war. However, they preferred ignorance over knowledge in pursuit of comfort. Ray Bradbury uses many of his characters in his book to show that morality and knowledge is important for a society to continue. It can be predicted that if the society in Anthem stays the way it is; corruption can grow because of how easy it is to manipulate the citizens. The population could also be wiped out by some disease. For example, we’ve had many iconic diseases plague and plunder the people into hopelessness such as the Bubonic Plague.