3/28: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451(1950)

Objectives: Let's begin class today with some brief film clips from The Atomic Cafe. The clips illustrate the anxiety about nuclear war and related commitment to conformity that characterized Cold War American culture. We will then relate the film clips to Bradbury's novel.

Questions to Consider:

1) How is warfare represented in Bradbury's novel?

2) To what extent is the novel a critical commentary on the Cold War culture of conformity?

3) How is technology represented in the novel?

4) How might we compare Bradbury's dystopian vision of the future to Huxley's?

A Few Sample Passages:

(Sorry - I left my current copy of the novel at home today. It had all the passages marked that I wanted to include. This is a rough approximation, and the page numbers are probably not the same as in your edition. I'll try to correct it later.)

One time, as a child, in a power-failure, his mother had found and lit a last candle and there had been a brief hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, hoping that the power might not come on again too soon. . . . (7)

Toast popped out of the silver toaster, was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it in melted butter.

Mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate, She had both ears plugged with electronic bees that were humming the hour away. She looked up suddenly, saw him, and nodded.

"You all right?" he asked.

She was an expert at lip reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear thimbles. She set the toaster clicking away at another piece of bread. (16-17)

But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all. . . (27)

"You know the law," said Beatty. "Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with each other. You've been locked up here for years with a damned Tower of Babel. Snap out of it! The people in those books never lived. Come on now!"

She shook her head. (35)

". . . Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily. Can you dance faster than the White Clown, shout louder than 'Mr. Gimmick' and the parlor 'families?' If you can, you'll win your way, Montag. In any event, you're a fool. People are having fun."

"Committing suicide! Murdering!"

A bomber flight had been moving east all the time they talked, and only now did the two men stop and listen, feeling the great jet sound tremble inside themselves.

"Patience, Montag. Let the war turn off the 'families.' Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge." (78)

"I'm not worried," said Mrs. Phelps. "I'll let Pete do all the worrying. She giggled. "I'll let old Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I'm not worried."

"Yes," said Millie. "Let old Pete do the worrying."

"It's always someone else's husband dies, they say."

"I've heard that, too. I've never known any dead man killed in a war. Killed jumping off buildings, yes, like Gloria's husband last week, but from wars? No."

"Not from wars," said Mrs. Phelps. "Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It's our third marriage each and we're independent. . . " (85)

". . . No one in his right mind, the Good Lord knows, would have children!" said Mrs. Phelps. . . .

"I wouldn't say that," said Mrs. Bowles. "I've had two children by Caesarian section. No use going through all that agony for a baby. The world must reproduce, you know, the race must go on. Besides, they sometimes look just like, and that's nice. Two Caesarians turned the trick, yes, sir. Oh, my doctor said, Caesarians aren't necessary; you've got the hips for it, everything's normal. but I insisted."

"Caesarians or not, children are ruinous; you're our of your mind," said Mrs. Phelps.

"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. Mrs. Bowles tittered. "They'd just as soon kick as kiss me. Thank God I can kick back!" (86-87)

"Go home." Montag fixed his eyes upon her, quietly. "Go home and think of your first husband divorced and your second husband killed in a jet and your third husband blowing his brains out, go home and think of the dozen abortions you've had, go home and think of that and your damn Caesarian sections, too, and your children who hate your guts! Go home and think how it all happened and what did you ever do to stop it? Go home, go home," he yelled. "Before I knock you down and kick you out the door!" (91)

Montag," the TV set said, and lit up. "M-O-N-T-A-G." The name was spelled out by a voice. "guy Montag. Still running, Police helicopters are up. A new Mechanical Hound has been brought from another district--"

Montag and Faber looked at each other.

"--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---" (118)

A voice cried, "There's Montag!  The search is done!"

The innocent man stood bewildered . . . He stared at the hound, not knowing what it was. He probably never knew. He glanced up at the sky and the wailing sirens. The camera rushed down. The Hound leapt up into the air with a rhythm and a sense of timing that was incredibly beautiful. Its needle shot out. It was suspended for a moment in their gaze, as if to give the vast audience time to appreciate everything, the raw look of the victim's face, the empty street, the steel animal a bullet nosing the target.

"Montag, don't move!" said a voice from the sky.

The camera fell upon the victim, even as did the Hound. Both reached him simultaneously. The victim was seized by Hound and camera in a great spidering, clenching grip. He screamed! He screamed! He screamed.

Blackout.

Silence.

Darkness.

Montag cried out in the silence and turned away. (133)

"Look!" cried Montag.

And the war began and ended in that instant.

Later, the men around Montag could not say if they had really seen anything. Perhaps the merest flourish of light and motion in the sky. . . (141)