A Historical Analysis of Ray Bradbury and

Fahrenheit 451
By Cecilia Compton
Ray Bradbury attended a carnival in 1932; this carnival was also attended by the
magician, Mr. Electro. Ray had a love for machines and mind tricks so he watched one
of the shows performed by this machine. At the end of Mr. Electros act the machine
reached out to twelve year old Bradbury and tapped him with his sword and
commanded Live Forever,. Of course Bradbury being the genius that he was decided
this was the greatest idea he had ever heard. Ray started writing every day and never
stopped. The book Fahrenheit 451 was one of Bradburys masterpieces and brought
many ideas into the world that had not been there before.
Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in the city of Waukegan, Illinois. His
parents were Leonard Spaulding Bradbury; a lineman for power and telephone utilities,

and Ester Moberg Bradbury; a Swedish immigrant. Ray enjoyed a relatively idealized
childhood in Waukegan, which he later incorporated into a few semi-autobiographical
books and short stories. As a kid, he loved magicians, and was an avid reader of
adventure and fantasy fiction, especially L. Frank Baum, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice
Burroughs.
Bradbury's family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1934. When Ray was a
teenager, he participated in his school's drama club. His first official pay as a writer
came for adding a joke to George Burns's Burns & Allen Show. After graduation from
high school in 1938, Bradbury was not able to afford a college education, so he went to
the local library instead. "Libraries raised me," he said. "I believe in libraries because
most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during
the Depression, and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library
three days a week for 10 years."1 To support himself Bradbury wrote and sold
newspapers. Ray published his first short story in a fan magazine in 1938; this was the
same year he graduated from high school. Just one year after that he published four
issues of his own fan magazine; Futuria Fantasia. Almost every piece in the magazine
was written by Bradbury; he used a variety of allies to try to hide the fact that the
magazine was a one-man show. "I was still years away from writing my first good short
story," Bradbury said, "but I could see my future. I knew where I wanted to go,. Ray
Bradbury sold his first professional piece in November 1941. The story was called
"Pendulum," it was just a month before the United States entered World War II,
following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.Ray was considered eligible for war by
his local draft board because of his vision problems it was then that Bradbury became a
full-time writer in early 1943. His first collection of short stories, Dark Carnival, was
published in 1947. That same year Bradbury met a clerk at a bookstore named
Marguerite "Maggie" McClure. They were married that year. Mcclure was the
1 Biography.com Editors. "Ray Bradbury Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television,

n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.

breadwinner in their early marriage supporting Ray as he wrote for little to no pay. They
later had four daughters, Susan (1949), Ramona (1951), Bettina (1955) and Alexandra
(1958).

Bradbury published his first major work In 1950; The Martian Chronicles. The book was
about the conflict between humans colonizing the red planet and the native Martians
they encountered there. Many considered this to be a work of science fiction, however
Bradbury himself considered it to be fantasy. "I don't write science fiction," Bradbury
said. "Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So
Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see?"
Television and comic book adaptations of Bradbury's short stories began to appear in
1951, this introduced him to a wider audience. Bradbury's best-known work, Fahrenheit
451, was published in 1953. It became an instant classic in the era of McCarthyism
because of its exploration of themes of censorship and conformity. In 2007, Bradbury
disputed that censorship wasnt the main theme of Fahrenheit 451, instead explaining
the book was a story about how television drives away interest in reading: "Television
gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was.", Bradbury is explaining how
Television will only show you who the person is but it wont explain why they are good or
bad or important.

Fahrenheit 451 was rumored to have been inspired many events, such as his
fear of what book burning could lead to, or the effect increased television watching
could have. One story is that Bradbury was pulled over by a cop for no reason and it
inspired him to write Fahrenheit 451. The book covers many issues that the world and
the US was facing at the time: this included censorship of what the public was seeing,
and the sudden switch from paper items like the newspaper to Television. Bradbury
showed this in Fahrenheit 451 in many places. Censorship is specifically shown in the
conversation between Beatty(the fire captain) and Montag when Montag has decided to
not come to work and Beatty decides to visit him:

"Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel
good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and
cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Bum the book. Serenity,
Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.
Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them, too. Five minutes after a person is
dead he's on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopters all over
the country. Ten minutes after death a man's a speck of black dust. Let's not quibble
over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn them all, burn everything. Fire is
bright and fire is clean.", (Page 57).
This shows Beattys support for burning books and censorship when he tries to
explain to Montag how getting rid of books is getting rid of opinions and opinions is what
creates conflict between people. Beatty explains how burning our issues get rid of them
and erases them when really it just disposes of the physical fight and creates more
fighting inside of people.
The society's obsession with TV is shown very well when Montag is trying to
convince his wife that he stole books for a good reason and she just wants to watch TV:
"You'll be here for the White Clown tonight, and the ladies coming over?" cried Mildred.
Montag stopped at the door, with his back turned.
"Millie?" A silence.
"What?"
"Millie? Does the White Clown love you?" No answer.
"Millie, does-" He licked his lips. "Does your `family' love you, love you very much, love
you with all their heart and soul, Millie?" He felt her blinking slowly at the back of his
neck.
"Why'd you ask a silly question like that?" He felt he wanted to cry, but nothing would
happen to his eyes or his mouth.
"If you see that dog outside," said Mildred, "give him a kick for me." He hesitated,
listening at the door. He opened it and stepped out. (Page 73).

Before this scene happens Montag tries to explain to Mildred why Books are so
important and how they need to help each other escape from this society's norms and
ideas. However, Mildred gets a call from a friend and decides to watch the show the
white clown instead. Monteag then asks Mildred weather or not the characters from the
TV love her all their heart, implying that he does. Mildred appears to be too afraid to
answer this question because of the problems and thoughts it might led to, so she
dismisses the question by calling Montag silly and moving on quickly.
Fahrenheit 451 also excels at metaphors, one very prominent metaphor in the
beginning of the book is the snake. Within the first few paragraphs the snake is brought
up.
With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene
upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some
amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the
tatters and charcoal ruins of history., (Page 1).
This represents how this new society works, in the bible the snake was able to
manipulate man and trick man. In this new society man has control of the snake and
uses it for terrible things like burning books. The snake also shows up when the main
character's wife, Mildred, overdoses on sleeping pills and is taken to the hospital.
They had this machine. They had two machines, really. One of them slid down
into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water
and the old time gathered there. It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a
slow boil. Did it drink of the darkness?, (Page 12).
The main character, Montag, is looking at Mildred in the hospital getting the
sleeping pills pumped out of her system and wondering if the snake will get rid of more
than just the pills but the real problem with Mildred; that is the old time she has in her
gut that is making her feel empty, board, and alone and what drove her to take too many
pills.

Bradburys habits in his childhood and early life showed what an incredible
writer he was bound to become and created the great ideas and thoughts he would
later put into writing. Fahrenheit 451 might have been the piece of work Bradbury got
the most credit for, but it was certainly not the only piece he showed his incredible talent
for writing and creating in. His one- man-show-newspaper was worthy of many awards
and showed his incredible perseverance. And talent. The Martian Chronicles were an
incredible success and Bradbury was able to create something viewed by many people
that he controlled. Bradbury had an incredible ability to get inspired by many things;
from current events to everyday things like driving to the grocery store.
Bradbury's ideas might have just seemed like a book but really dive deeper into
the mind and behaviors. Bradbury took what was happening and pushed it into the
future and what he got was a horrifying reality that was a very possible future at the
time. However, the future in Fahrenheit 451 is probably much different than what the
future of our current society has in store.

Sources:
"Ray Bradbury." Ray Bradbury. HarperCollinsPublishers, n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.
Biography.com Editors. "Ray Bradbury Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television,
n.d. Web. 07 Mar. 2016.