Ray Bradbury

Born in Waukegan, IL on August 22, 1920 Author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, lecturer, poet and visionary Moved to Los Angeles, CA in 1934 Formal education ended with HS graduation in 1938 Could not enlist due to vision problems Full-time writer by 1943 Published 30 books, approx. 600 short stories and numerous poems, essays, screenplays, and plays Died in Los Angeles on June 5, 2012 at 91 years of age

Fahrenheit 451 Martian Chronicles Something Wicked this Way Comes Dandelion Wine (some NPHS teachers cover this) Stories you have read: “All Summer in a Day” “There Will Come Soft Rains”

Published in 1953 Written on pay-by-the-hour typewriters in the UCLA library Follows other futuristic, dystopian novels, such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Dystopian novel set in futuristic America Tackles issues of conformity, censorship and advancements in technology

Set in a future in which a totalitarian government has banned the written word Firemen no longer put out fires, they start them Protagonist: Montag Fireman/book burner When story opens, he enjoys his job Begins to question his duties Begins to learn about the world before book burning Tries to fight the system Runs for his life

451 degrees Fahrenheit: the temperature at which paper combusts and continues to burn of its own accord Utopia: the perfect society Dystopia: opposite of utopia—a society in which everything is all wrong and horrible Phoenix: mythical bird characterized by its gold and red plumage; ignites into flames and is reborn from its own ashes Salamander: amphibian that makes its home in fires (mythology)

McCarthyism— period of anti-communism in U.S. Led to witch hunts seeking communists Government banned access to books, newspapers and magazines deemed anti-American WWII— Nazi’s burn books in Hitler’s Germany Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Censorship— Use of government power to control speech and other forms of human expression