Fahrenheit 451 Analysis

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Set in the twenty-fourth century, Fahrenheit 451 introduces a new world in which control of the masses by the media, overpopulation, and censorship has taken over the general population. The individual is not accepted and the intellectual is considered an outlaw. Television has replaced the common perception of family. The fireman is now seen as a flamethrower, a destroyer of books rather than an insurance against fire. Books are considered evil because they make people question and think. The people live in a world with no reminders of history or appreciation of the past; the population receives the present from television. Ray Bradbury introduces this new world through the character Guy Montag, the protagonist, during a short time in his life. The story begins with an inciting incident in which Montag meets Clarisse McClellan. Montag, a fireman who destroys books for a living, is walking…show more content…
By the time the Mechanical Hound reaches the river, Montag's trail is lost. He safely floats down the river toward a group of social outcasts and criminals like himself. Montag leaves the river and immediately finds the group that Faber told him about. He meets the unacknowledged leader of the group, Granger, who welcomes Montag to join them. Although he thought that the search was called off, Montag finds out that it was just rerouted. He watches on television as an innocent man, strolling along the city streets, is purposefully identified as Montag and is killed for the entire television audience to see. The group decides to move on from their current site, and while they are walking, Granger explains the purpose of the outlaw group: They are preserving books by memorizing their contents and then destroying them. Books can not be forgotten, because each person in the group is a living version of them. Montag becomes the Book of Ecclesiastes from the

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