Bradbury's Use of Language

[Mrs. W]

This is Assignment Choice #2. Do not post here until you receive instructions (and Assignment Choice #1) in class. Thanks!

Bradbury is a master at using language in creative and interesting ways to give hints about the characters, setting and plot of his stories. Choose several examples in Fahrenheit 451 of the way that Bradbury creates a sense of a dysfunctional society and explain how these examples give the story a sense of uneasiness or foreboding. You might identify instances of repetition, similes and metaphors, imagery, alliteration, personification, symbolism, or irony. Be sure to explain specifically the effect the sentence(s) has on the reader.

Do not write an introduction or conclusion, just three interesting body paragraphs. Use MLA format.

Post your paragraphs below. Hint: Use Word first, then paste it into the Ning, due to the 15-minute editing window.

[Tyler E]

Tyler Espinoza
Mrs. Wantz
English 10, Period 4
May 10, 2009

Bradbury’s Use of Language in Fahrenheit 451

Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses similes and metaphors to present to the readers, a dysfunctional society and foolish behavior. “Books bombarded his shoulders, his arms, his upturned face. A book lit, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering.”(Bradbury 41). Montag didn’t know what to think. It’s almost as if the book was taunting him, and engraving the line of the book that he read, in his mind. “The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”(85). Here, Bradbury is using a metaphor in which displays the effect of writers and how pieces of literature touch people’s lives and how some hurt people.

“He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house.”(1). Ray Bradbury also shows that the society in Fahrenheit 451 is dysfunctional through discomfort. He gives the reader this feeling and at the same time uses irony. “If you see that dog outside,” said Mildred, “Give him a kick for me.”(79). Throughout the book Bradbury depicts the women just as punitive as the men, but kind of crazy.

“Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity.”(9). Ray Bradbury uses the most imagery and detail that I’ve ever read in a book. It seems as though everything he talks about, one after another, has so much detail that you can’t really miss anything which can give the reader the feeling of first-hand experience of witnessing whatever it is that Bradbury is talking about. “One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire.”(21). The repetition Bradbury uses, tells the reader how unstable Montag is internally, like there’s something very wrong with him.

[Luke S.]

Luke Scolari
Mrs. Wantz
Period 4
May 10 2009

Guy Montag is troubled during his ride in a subway when a commercial called: Denham’s Dentifrice, he is attempting to memorize one line in the bible, however, the similar repeating voice calling out: Denham’s Dentifrice is replaced in his mind. This shows how little Montag’s memorization and attention span is. Ray Bradbury captures this scene flawlessly with the repeating voice of: Denham’s Dentifrice over and over. He proves that the voice is soothing and reassuring to innocent on lookers who no longer desire the passion to read, but to Guy Montag it pounds against his ear drums rattling his mind like thunder booming over and over again.


“How long you figure before we save up and get a fourth wall-TV put in?”(24). Mildred, Guy Montag’s wife is obsessed with her so called ‘Parlor’ and her ‘family’ that she watches for hours on end, so much that she bluntly tends to put programming before her husband. She is a consumer who has no interest whatsoever in books or other affairs outside her home. Mildred is just another zombie captured by Bradbury’s imperfect world. The dialogue between Guy and Mildred is so plain, however, the point that Bradbury makes is in plain sight.


When Montag begins to start questioning the code of conduct the firemen hold dear, Beatty firmly reminds him of the rules they follow. “1. Answer the Alarm swiftly. 2. Start the fire. 3. Burn everything. 4. Report back to firehouse immediately. 5. Stand alert for other alarms”(38). So strict these rules are that any sort of defiance would result in dire consequences. Montag, fearing Beatty continues his career. However, that night during one of the burns a woman keeps to her house clutching a book ever so tightly. A passion and love of literature that Montag soon begins to feel as well. Bradbury’s description of the burning home is simple but bone chilling. “ The woman on the porch reached out with contempt to them all and struck the kitchen match against the railing.”(43).

[Ashish P]

Ashish Patel
Mrs. Wantz
Period 4 English
9 June, 2009

Controlling the Reader

Bradbury’s use of repetition, personification, and similes with metaphors take the reader of Fahrenheit 451 on a grand journey through a society that shuns books and literature. The first use of language, repetition, is most likely one of the most powerful language devices used by Bradbury to show the feelings and thoughts of the characters in the novel. “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom!”(Bradbury 58) This isn’t necessarily an example of repetition, however the quick words and choppy pace of reading that comes out of this passage is almost synonymous with the effect that repetition gives. In this excerpt from the novel, Captain Beatty is trying to get Guy Montag, the main character, to speed up his thinking instead of trying to slow down and contemplate things. But even as the captain blasts these words into Montag’s head, the reader’s mind also speeds up. In a way, Bradbury starts to control the reader and make his mind speed up as well. Using repetition, Bradbury can show the reader the pace and level of thought that any character has at any given time. Other examples of repetition in the novel also show the same thing. That is, what a certain character’s thoughts are. “Trumpets blared. ‘Denham’s Dentifrice’ shut up, thought Montag… They toil not- ‘Denham’s-’. Consider the lilies of the field, shut up, shut up! ‘Dentifrice!’… Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies! ‘Denham’s does it! Denham’s dental detergent!’ Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” (81) Another great example of repetition is seen here. In this passage, Guy Montag is trying to read a passage of a stolen Bible, however, an extremely annoying advertisement is blaring from one of the thousands of televisions around him, disrupting his thoughts. Not only does this passage show in detail how Montag is extremely frustrated with the advertisement, it also shows how most of the public in this imaginary world are almost unable to think just because of the amount of noise that they are surrounded by. From this passage, not only does Montag get angry from the annoying “Denham’s Dental Dentifrice” advertisement, but the reader also seems to get a small bit annoyed as well when the advertisement is being repeated between the lines.


Personification is another great tool used by Bradbury to convey the thoughts. Personification is most likely a very powerful tool simply because the number of inanimate objects in the story that almost seem to come alive on their own. Things like televisions, “families”, annoying advertisements, and screaming jets and cars. “It was a special pleasure to see things eaten…” (Bradbury 7). Already in the very beginning of the book we can see that Bradbury put a lot of personification into the novel. Eaten in this case, is of course a personification for fire burning something down. Bradbury personifies fire in the very first line of the novel. Obviously something like this would hint an experienced reader that a lot of the language used by Bradbury would be coming in the form of personification.


Similes and metaphors are another widely used language tool used in the novel. However, they are not as widely noticed and controlling as tools like repetition and personification. “It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set.” (15) In this example, Bradbury describes Guy Montag walking into his own apartment with this kind of detail instead of saying “The room was cold.” He uses this kind of language to mainly describe to us how life is like in this new society of the future. Of course, that is the point of similes and metaphors, but Bradbury uses it to not only describe actions and surroundings, he sometimes uses it to describe thoughts as well. “He lay far across from her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea.” (45) This passage shows how Montag feels so foreign to his own wife. Note the word feels. This passage describes Montag’s feelings and emotions to his wife rather than his perceptions of his surroundings and his environment. With this comparison and with every other example of similes and metaphors, we can almost imagine exactly what his emotions would feel like and what his surroundings would look like.

[Luci S]

Luci Scolari
Mrs. Wantz
Period 6
10 May 2009


In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses repetition to create a sense of uneasiness, and in a sense, utter insanity. The way he uses it seems to really get under one’s skin, and make them feel as if they were going a bit insane, “One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, Uncle. Four, fire. One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire…” (Bradbury 21) You can really feel the main character, Guy Montag, losing his grip on reality as his mind starts to race, whether it’s counting raindrops, or arguing with an advertisement whilst trying to memorize something.


Another way he uses language to make the reader feel uneasy is his use of metaphors. It brings a descriptive sense to the story that really plays on the imagination. “…while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house” (7). Of course we know books aren’t pigeons, and don’t in fact have wings, but we’ve all seen the wind blow through the pages of a book, so in a way, these two things that are completely different when put together create an beautiful, yet somewhat disturbing image in out heads. The metaphors allow the reader to visualize the inanimate object as a living being, dying in the fire.


Finally, Bradbury uses personification to put the finishing touches on his words. "It was a special pleasure to see things eaten." (Bradbury 7) People don’t usually think of fire as alive, but in truth, it is, it needs fire to survive, and people even use the term, “feed the flames” to pertain to the act of putting wood in the fire to keep it going. Because people don’t see fire as alive, it is often personified in stories. Bradbury describes fire as a wild, out of control beast that devours everything it touches. Everyone deep down has a small sense of fear of fire, so of course to think of it as a living breathing monster scares them, and the fact that houses are burned so much in this story is horrific.

[Bryan F]

Bryan Fregoso
Period 5

In Bradbury's writing, an act as simple as getting into bed becomes an utterly haunting description, “So it was the hand that started it all…He held his pants out into an abyss and let them fall into darkness. His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms…like a spark leaping from a gap” (Bradbury 41). He purposefully uses the metaphor of an infection to create a sense that the people in this world are not even safe within their own homes. He also uses the spark as a simile to support the metaphor of the infection spreading throughout his body.

Early in the novel, Bradbury places the reader in the character’s shoes through a well written, but hectic paragraph. He begins by confusing the reader through the use of repetition, “One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred…The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano” (18). This paragraph continues to move the plot forward but those details are hidden amongst the repeated phrases and use of imagery to describe natural disasters. He also uses personification such as, “Thunder falling downstairs” (18). It is so chaotically written that the reader feels the disorder that is being described.

Finally, in a novel that is about the importance of books, Ray Bradbury sums up his love of books in three sentences, “The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies” (83). He starts with a beautiful description of what a good book can be but then ends it with a cruel image of a woman being raped. Disturbingly, Bradbury uses this type of imagery multiple times in his novel, “Three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other’s limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter” (94). In this world, those images are considered entertainment.

[Kristen S]

Kristen Sohasky

English 5

Wantz

May 8, 2009


Bradbury's Use of Language

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses irony to give creative descriptions of the characters. At the beginning of the novel, Guy Montag speaks with his wife about how devastated he felt after seeing a woman and her books go down in flames. This event makes him question what is so captivating about books, and is the beginning of his desire to find out. After hearing her husband complain, Millie replied with, “She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have had books.” (Bradbury 51). This irony shows that Millie, Montags’ wife, is self-centered and disrespectful. Later on in the novel, Montage speaks of his wife Millie and tells the reader that “If she died he was certain he wouldn’t cry” (44). This also is a form of irony that he, as her husband, couldn’t care less if she died. It secretly tells the reader that Montags’ character is not in love with his wife, irony is also apparent when neither Guy nor his wife remembered how or where they met for the first time. Bradbury also uses irony when describing the setting. Take for example, when Millie tried to commit suicide by overdosing and the men sent to pump her stomach said, “We got these cases nine or ten a night. Get so many; starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built.” This shows suicidal attempts were very common in this time period and there were many clinically depressed people. Bradbury also uses irony to describe the plot. “Funny, how funny not to remember where or when you met your husband or wife” (43) This shows that the people in this story do not have a big memory span due to little education, for they are not allowed to read and expand their minds and intelligence.

Similes are also used throughout the novel to describe and help the reader form a vivid picture. When Bradbury explains how Montag felt after seeing the house with the woman and books burn to ashes he recalls that “It blazed in his mind for the next minute as if stamped there with fiery steel” (37). With the emphasis on how well it stuck in Montags’ mind, the author shows how powerful this one event was in Montags’ life. Montag also describes to the reader how his wife’s “thimble moved like a praying mantis on the pillow” (48) as she listened to her sea shell ear piece, shutting herself out from the world. This simile helps the reader feel how awful the world is that people try to shut themselves out from what is going on. When Montag recalls that “the book lay like great mounds of fishes left to dry” (38) it starkly paints a picture for the reader that the plot is to destroy every book that is out in the universe so that no single person can come an intellectual.

Descriptive sounds and writing style are also used in the novel to exaggerate what is occurring. When Montag asks his wife if it is true that back in the day firemen would prevent fires rather than start them, “he felt a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan talking” (34). Bradbury makes the moment when Montag steps into the house awaking Millie come alive for the reader when he writes that she “rolls impatiently; the bedspring squealing” (41), and irately asking him if he is drunk. As Montag describes how he felt like a man that had been thrown over a cliff and whirled in a centrifuge, leading to a waterfall that kept falling into emptiness he describes it as “never-quite-touched-bottom-never-never-quite-no not quite-touched-bottom” (45). By using this hyphenated writing style, Bradbury makes it seem as though he is slowly falling and will never hit bottom; as it is a calm and slow voice that seems to go on forever, not a frantic and fast voice.

[Michelle S.]

Michelle S.
period: 5

“Yes,” said Millie. Let old Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I’m not worried.”
“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.” This excerpt is quite disturbing when read. In today’s society it is more common to hear of someone who had died in a war than suicide. Suicide in Ray Bradbury’s society seems normal like it is not a big deal. They treat the human life like it is nothing. This society must have so much wrong in it if people are regularly jumping off buildings. Also, the tone she says it in is appalling. The emotion is absent; there is no sadness or grief. This society has no true emotion in it if people are discarding a human life especially a husbands life as nothing. They can just get another one as if it is an item you get from the store. There is no real value to a life in this society. It seems that in this society they do not want to face their problems or show their real emotions so they act as if it is nothing. As if losing a husband is not a big deal.

Ray Bradbury uses a simile to powerfully describes how empty and “poisonous” and dark people can become. He also uses descriptive imagery to make it seem as if it is happening to you. “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?...”(14-15)As the excerpt continues it describes how the operators of these machines were not even medical personnel. They were like plumbers replacing a broken pipe. The men described how it was normal for people to overdose on sleeping pills, to try and commit suicide. This quote scares the reader because it describes what is happening so vividly and so impersonal with the men that come. It is also scary because how it was so common for people to try and kill themselves. This simile of the machine makes one fearful of this society because any person could have the power to look inside of you. Take away all that makes up you. In this society they thrash a person until they can not take it, the person tries to end their life, and the society prevents them. Then they replace a part of you so you are not quite the same. It goes again into the same cycle. No wonder no one in this society is truly happy. Frankly, this society scares a reader out of their wits.

In our society, a normal person does things that in the fictional society that Ray Bradbury depicts is opposite. Clarisse says this to Guy: “The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch birds and collect butterflies. I’ll show you my collection sometime.” (23) Bradbury shows through this dialogue something so normal in our age as hiking in a forest to seem so abnormal. It make this society seem as if it were all about everything except the natural world. In other parts of the book a woman describes how children are like laundry. Again, an item that can be replaced easily. Also, she describes how she puts her children in school nine days out of ten. This society is not close to what our society is now. It sets a tone of uneasiness because the reader almost instantly is miffed at the thought of leaving children in a school without seeing them except three days out of the month. Also, not hiking or watching birds can make people not appreciate the world as much. These examples open a door to show how selfish this society’s true priorities are.

[Warren H.]

Warren Halderman
Mrs. Wantz
Period 4
May 10 2009

Ma good ol’ friend Ray Bradbury uses quite intricate techniques in his writing, although at the same time, they seem simple beyond anything else. He writes short quick sentences in order to address that the character he’s writing about is most likely being transported to an absurd state of mind... Then, he conjures up longer sentences to introduce a state reverted back to calmness, or something of the sort.
Bradbury is also a grand master at giving every simple object and action a unique specification. Such as, “soft sounds, shoved clumsily, tiny dance of melody.” Nearly no word uttered is left without a tiny hint of imagery. This causes the reader to stay in an alert state of mind, which, in turn, burns all the images into memory, motivating the reader to ponder deeply. They then feel as though they are there.
Another technique Bradbury uses, although uncontrolled, is one where he writes everything down without really considering it. Mainly for the fact that he was constantly timed when he was writing his book. Most of the story came nearly off the top of his mind. This brings out a sense of reality, because you don’t generally have a lengthy period of time to respond to somebody when they’re talking to you. The dialogue feels real, Fahrenheit 451 seems to be a likely future, this strikes fear into the readers' psyches.

[LizbethM]

Lizbeth M.
Mrs. Wantz
Period 6
10 May 2009
“The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great tonload of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run, there was no place to run; the great air train fell down its shaft in the earth” (Bradbury 81). In the novel Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury uses personification to create a dysfunctional society. This brings the scenes of the book to life, by vividly deciphering what is going on and how Montag feels he is alone, even though he is married. It describes how the radio is drowning Montag’s train of thought, while he was trying to memorize some lines of the bible. Jus the word “vomited” is such an unpleasant word, that you know when it is used in a sentence it will always seem to embody something vile. Also, the description on how the people “were pounded into submission” and how they could not run shows how they are just being forcefully spoon fed the information that is being transmitted.

“And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn’t cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still empty”( 47). There are two meanings to this quote by the means of a metaphor; one is that Bradbury is referring to an event of Mildred being drained by a snake, which is actually a technological device that is flushing the drugs out of her body. Montag refers to this, that even though it is flushing the drugs out, it seems as though it is always sucking away Mildred’s life. Another way to interpret that this a dysfunctional society, is when he said if Mildred would have died, he would not cry, because it is like crying for a stranger an “unknown”. It would be like looking at the obituaries in the news paper and crying for them even if you never knew the deceased. Even the merciless would cry for one of their loved ones, because love does conquer in the end. The society that Montag lives in is clearly to be seen as a dystopia, he even admits to not remembering to where or how he met his wife. He lives in a world where nothing seems to be the way it should be.

Lastly, Bradbury sets the scenes by being repetitive; it helps us know what and how things are going on, it makes us feel like if we are experiencing what he is experiencing. For example, the bomber planes that fly by frequently, and somehow seems to distort his thoughts and never seem to leave him alone. “going over, going over, going over, one two, one two, one two, six of them, nine of them, twelve of them…did all the screaming for him” (17). When he found his wife Mildred passed out on the bed, lifeless, he wanted to scream and he explains how the bomber planes would have covered up his voice. This also gives a sense of an uneasy society, because this quote is showing how the society is put under oppression they brought upon their selves.

[Allany C]

O. C.
Mrs. Wantz
English Period 5
11 May 2009

Bradbury’s Use of Language

The effect of repetition gives the story depth towards the uneasiness abyss. The use of repetition creates motions and distress; “One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire. One Mildred, the, Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred ,uncle, fire…” (18). The purpose of the repetition is to emphasize the unstable state of Montag’s mind. He conjures other thoughts, jumps around and repeats earlier thoughts. The fact that he is in an unstable state gives the story a sense of uneasiness. Another example is when Montag explains to Mildred about the pills; “Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopey you kept on until you had thirty or forty of them in you” (19). In this dystopian world, people forget and indulge in pleasure. People forget and keep doing whatever they think is right. Even if it is something detrimental, like swallowing a whole a bottle of sleeping pills. The repetition represents the disadvantage of the average citizen: forgetfulness.

In addition to repetition, Bradbury uses major irony to move readers. Firefighters in the modern world right now fight fire, but the firefighters of Fahrenheit 451 starts them; “Didn’t firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?” (34). The term firefighter no longer means the same thing as the reader knows it. It is shocking when something is the opposite and unexpected of what it appears to be. Someone who is supposed to fight fires is actually the one that starts them in the dystopian world.

Another use of Bradbury’s language is through personification. Fire in this dystopian world is ominous. It is “the orange dragon” that “coughed to life” (35). Fire burns everything in its path. It burns people. It burns the books. The dystopian world is ruled by fire. A creature as mystical and ominous as a dragon is quite fitting to the image of fire. Also, the use of personification creates a physical state of unease; “His hands were ravenous. And his eyes were beginning to feel hunger, as if they must look at something, anything, everything” (41). Just like Montag’s mental state, his physical state is starting to fall into the category of unstable. The words ‘ravenous’ and ‘hunger’ create a sense of urgency and image of a savage with no control.

[Chelsey S.]

Chelsey Sainsbury
Mrs. Wantz
Period 1
From the very beginning of the story, Bradbury uses vivid imagery and metaphors to describe how the characters are feeling. The first pages has an incredible amount of imagery of fires, burning, burning the books and the houses. “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 the charcoal ruins of history,” (Bradbury 7). In this sentence, Bradbury uses imagery to describe how Montag feels as he’s burning the books. Burning gives him a sense of happiness because of the fat that he is burning every book in existence. To the reader, this is not normal. It might be normal for a rebellious teen to want to burn books out of hatred, but not for a grown man. This abnormality from the beginning creates the sense that his entire society if different from what the reader knows. The society in which Montag lives is dysfunctional.
Another way Bradbury wrote to catch the reader’s attention is repetition. When he repeats things over and over, it creates suspense and wonder. An example of this is on pages 21 and 22, there is a rainstorm. “One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire. One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, three, four five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping tablets, men disposable tissue, coattails, blow wad flush, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, tablets, tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, three, one, two, three! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in a volcano. All rushing down around in a spouting roar and rivering stream toward morning.” These are Montag’s thoughts, and each sentence has a meaning, each period is a beat. His thoughts are in rhythm like a beating heart. This repetition and beat causes the reader to feel uneasy and to think that something is going to happen regarding what has been said.
Bradbury uses the diction of the characters to help the reader understand them better. Whenever Mildred spoke, it was plain, simple, and uncaring. This showed her plain personality, the personality of most of the people in their society. On the other hand, when Clarisse spoke, it was curious, wordy and child-like. She was the complete opposite of normal in the society, and it was her curiosity and wisdom that got her and her family into trouble. Another character whose personality was shown through his diction was Captain Beatty. He spoke wisely, and he quoted books, something that was unthinkable in the society. This shows his longer life dealing with books, and his ability to use words skillfully to trick people, as he did to Montag. Lastly, there is Montag, the most complex of the characters. At the beginning of the novel, he was normal to their society, he was careless and boring. That was, until everything changed. He met Clarisse, and she broadened his mind, questioned him, and made him realize that there was more to life than what they had. As he talked to Clarisse, he became more curious and aware, and as he learns, he becomes more and more passionate for the things he came to love most-books. By the end of the novel, he had changed dynamically from bland to passionate and smart. Bradbury uses the diction to show, not say, these changes and personalities.

[Collin M.]

Collin Masiel
Mrs. Wantz
English Period 2
3 May 2009

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, is a powerful and passionate writer who exhibits his vivid diction from page one. He brings his vision of a dark, dysfunctional future to the reader using similes, alliteration, copious amounts of imagery, along with many other literary devices. Bradbury can take a simple item like the “fire hose” used by the “firefighters”, and transform it into a “great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world” (bradbury 7). A description such as this brings a much more uneasy and real perspective of main character, Guy Montag’s world.
Along with simile, Bradbury implements vivid imagery to describe his characters and their settings. This imagery makes the characters and settings in Fahrenheit 451 seem much more real than just objects in a science-fiction novel. Accomplishing a task such as this while writing a novel defines Bradbury as a very strong writer. It also helps to reveal the plot and foreshadow events to come later on in the novel. Bradbury describes scenes which create a sense of comfort in is fairy-tale world but also uses imagery to procure a feeling of despair.
Aside from using literary devices to unravel the plot of the novel, Bradbury also uses a unique writing style and by taking common and not-so-common objects, actions, or scenes and switches them around. As seen in Fahrenheit 451, suicide is a nightly occurrence and instead of putting out fires, the “firefighters” start them to destroy all of