Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which paper catches fire and burns. It is also the name of the Utopian (or, should one
say anti-Utopian) novel by Ray Bradbury.
Is it
possible for books, the storehouse of knowledge, to be the cause of all the unhapiness in the world? Ray Bradbury asks the question. And in this novel the
author seeks to visualize such a world. Montag is one of the chosen, whose duty it is to root out this evil before it spreads. But who will guard against the guardians if they choose to savor the forbidden fruit? It is also the story of an individual in a world where individualism is regarded with misgiving, if not with outright suspicion.
They work in the darkness of the night, under the shadow of anonymity. It is against the law to read any of the books they burn. They say that the men in those books are not real, and that they never lived. The accusation is that none of the books seem to agree with each other over anything; in other words they force us to think. Intellectual is a swear word and contemplation is an anti-social activity in a world gone mad with conformity.
But Montag, the hero, is a destroyer who turns the corner one day when he dares to look at his world through another’s eyes. He finds himself unhappy and alone among strangers, even though they are his associates and friends. Not for him the sleeping pills, not for him the un-ending fantasies spun on the television screens. The Captain, who seems to have all the answers, tells him that sooner or later every fireman goes through this crisis. But curiosity gets the better of Montag, and his courage overcomes his dread.
Ray Bradbury’s work is no parable of the fall from grace, nor is the world of his imagination a latter day Eden. It is not possible, the author seems to say, to put back the genie (of knowledge) once it has been let loose upon the world. It is not possible to punish those who ask these and other questions, with the fear of death. This work has some parallels with Logan’s Run. Darker than George Orwell’s 1984, yet imbued with a greater hope for the strand of individualism is stronger still.