F a h r e n h e I t 4 5 1 by Ray Bradbury

Notes on Bradbury Born 1920 in Illinois Recipient of Lifetime Achievement Award from National Book Awards

Bradbury wrote for Alfred Hitchcock and TV series The Twilight Zone                                             

Helped design EPCOT center and 1964 World’s Fair

A crater on the moon, Dandelion Crater, was named after one of Bradbury’s book titles: Dandelion Wine.

What was going on in 1953?

Bradbury in 1952

Fahrenheit 451 Inspired by real life and his short story “The Pedestrian” 1950 Wrote a shorter version entitled “The Fireman” that was published in the Galaxy Sci-Fi Magazine                               

Publication date of Fahrenheit 451                                Written at UCLA Library on a rented Type writer for 10cents per 30mins. Took 9 days to write and cost $9.80 Copy-righted in 1953

The Cold War

Invention of the Hydrogen Bomb (20 x more powerful than the atomic bomb)                         

death of Stalin Joseph Stalin dies in the Soviet Union

Debut of Colored television

America caught up in McCarthyism            

McCarthyism: A national fear A campaign to rid the U.S. of “card-carrying Communists” Instituted by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy The accused were required to attend hearings

A helpful guide to blacklisting, published during the 1950's.

http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html#

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451was written during the Cold War in response to the censorship going on in the name of Communism, and in which books were burned to get rid of them and their ideas.  Author Stephen King once told a group of students that if they hear of a book being banned, they should run out and read it to find out what it is that people don't want others to know. 

Nazi Book Burning 1933 Without Free Speech no search for the truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful... Better a thousand abuse free speech than deny free speech. The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of people, and entombs the hope of the race - by Charles Bradlaugh

Literary elements in Fahrenheit 451:

Conflict a struggle or clash between opposing characters, forces,or emotions

External conflict a character struggles against an outside force, such as another character, society, or nature as a whole

Internal Conflict: a struggle between opposing needs, desires, or emotions. an internal conflict occurs within a single character

theme: the central idea or insight revealed by a work of literature. Fahrenheit 451 is about individuality, censorship, human dignity

symbolism:                              the use of people, places, things, events to represent something else besides itself. (The Hearth and the Salamander)