The Book & the Snake

Sadie, Ce, & Sarah

Our art piece is a larger version of the book Fahrenheit 451, but inside
we have a snake surrounded by fire. The quotes hanging from the top
explain the meaning of the snake,
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. (1) And later, when describing a snake used to resuscitate
people, Bradbury writes: 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?. (13)
This image represents how this new society works. In the Bible the
snake was able to manipulate and trick humans. 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. The fire represents the burning of
books in this society and how it creates the society's ideas and ways of life.