Google, Playboy, and 9.8 dollars… Only a story written by life could connect them. 451 — this is the number of the error that Google shows people who cannot see a webpage for legal reasons. 9.8 dollars — the price which one writer paid for the rent of the typewriter in the library’s basement. The story which was born with this typewriter was sold for four hundred and fifty dollars to a brave publisher for his about-to-be born magazine. The brave publisher was Hugh Hefner. The magazine was Playboy. The writer was Ray Bradbury and the story which we are going to talk about is Fahrenheit 451.

Not being a big fan of dystopia, I am still interested in not only what is said in a story, but how it is said. So, I am not going to focus on what Bradbury wrote, but how he built the story: which color did he choose and how did he apply it to the canvas of his novel?

It was a pleasure to burn. Just the first line of the story and so many questions into a reader’s head. To burn what? Why is it a pleasure? And for whom? With this first line Bradbury easily grabs our attention. Continuing with the seemingly clarifying but actually more confusing second sentence It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. Bradbury completely captivates us with his story.

We have memorized this a special pleasure to see things changed: few lines and pages later we will find out that we are in a world which does not have any room for changes. The only change is the things which turn into ashes (which — as the moto dictates — a fireman should burn too). Depressing world, huh? Then it is more interesting for me to have a closer look at one concept: happiness, which goes hand in hand with a smile or laugh, warmth, and courage to look into yourself and ask yourself questions.

Smile and Laugh

We can begin with a smile and laugh. The first smile we see in the story is a smile which belongs to the main character Montag. Bradbury describes it in this way: <…> fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles <…>. It never went away, that smile <…>. And to emphasize Bradbury adds: it never ever went away, as long as he remembered. We can see here that Montag himself does not smile, his face muscles smile for him and somehow he cannot erase this grin from his face.

We will see how this smile will melt away one day and it will be the first huge change in Montag.

But now let’s have a look at how Bradbury uses this way of describing fake happiness or smiles. We see Beatty — the chef of Montag and the adept of the ethos of this unchangeable, dystopian, metallic and cold world — and his strange laugh: Beatty stood there looking at him steadily with his eyes, while his mouth opened and began to laugh, very softly. Again, his mouth began to laugh, not Beatty himself.

Or, when Montag eventually admitted to himself that he is not happy, his wife — who tried to kill herself — said:

‘I am’, Mildred’s mouth beamed. ‘And proud of it’.

With this mouth beamed we believe: Mildred is utterly unhappy.  

And almost every time when Bradbury wants to show us the dissonance between the deep inner world of the characters — sometimes hidden from them themselves — and its outer face, he uses this method: when unhappy or insincere people smile or laugh we do not see the movements of their hearts, but just the mechanical movements of muscles.

That is why we are so terrified, when we see the short sentence: Beatty smiled. He smiled when he explained why Clarisse is dead: She didn’t want to know how a thing was done, but why. <…> The poor girl’s better off dead. 

I am not going to deprive you from the pleasure of finding out how Clarise’s smile is different to others in this story, so I am inviting you to have a look at how Bradbury uses an empty laugh, which we use as a protective reaction from the doubts or thoughts, to manifest how deeply unhappy this world is.

For example, here is the dialogue between the young girl Clarise and Montag, in which we can see his first laugh.

‘Strange. I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames’.

He laughed.

She glanced quickly over. ‘Why are you laughing?’

‘I don’t know’. He started to laugh again and stopped. ‘Why?’

‘You laugh when I haven’t been funny and your answer right off. You never stop to think what I’ve asked you’.

Alas, answering it, Montag resorted to the force that is still used by adults, but never matured people — the force of authority:

‘Haven’t you any respect?’ or ‘Well, doesn’t this mean anything to you?’ He tapped the numerals 451 stitched on his char-colored sleeve.

Or another dialogue between Mildred and Montag, when they tried to remember how they met: 

‘Don’t get excited. I’m trying to think’. She laughed an odd little laugh that went up and up. ‘Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband or wife’.

Instead of being shocked by this discovery she clings to the word ‘funny’ (I cannot help but notice in brackets that these two words funny or fun are her last straw. Here, for example, how Mildred explains to Montag a funny play:

‘It’s sure fun,’ she said.

‘What’s the play about?’

‘I just told you. There are these people named Bob and Ruth and Helen’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s really fun’.

We see her unable to explain the plot, the meaning of the story and why it is funny for her. A terrifying example of how homo sapiens could turn into homo swallowing the stream of information all day long).

Empty fun, empty laughter…

But, again, we will see how this empty laughter could change. Here is the dialogue between Clariss and Montag:

‘I think so. Yes.’ He had to laugh, says Bradbury highlighting an impulsive, spontaneous, non-controlled reaction.

‘Your laugh sounds much nicer than it did.’

‘Does it?’

‘Much more relaxed.’

He felt at ease and comfortable.

Warmth of Hearts 

Another thing which drew my attention is how Bradbury operates with colour, light and cold and warmth. Saying that the colours palette — from red, yellow to silver or fragile milk — refers to many interesting details and observations (for example, we see the firemen house in the colours of coins, of gold, of silver); leaving the light concept (from moon or candle to merciless electric light) beyond this discussion, we are going to concentrate on the contrast between warmth and cold.

No doubt, that you have already connected cold with — if I may say so — bad guys and warmth with the good ones in this story. But what about joining something cold and something warm?

This is how Bradbury describes the night of the first meeting of Clarisse and Montag:

They walked in the warm-cool blowing night…

This dichotomy we will see later, when Bradbury describes Mildred with her apathetic ‘forgot to tell you that Clarisse died 4 days ago’ and her so bothered nature, hidden inside her, making her kill herself, or Montag suffering from cold and fever at the same time. But for now we know that it is late in the year, autumn. Night’s breeze with the warm-cool breath unites two people, who are supposed to be on the different sides, heralding their friendship. 

Of course, we will see a bed, which is always cold, Montag’s habit of not showing true emotions even to himself: But instead he stood there, very cold, his face a mask of ice… And the cold fluid — kerosene — which will burn a woman and her books. We will see a short cold notice: ‘Have a reason to suspect attic <…>’. A cold answer from Mildred when she is forced to hear the story about the burnt woman: She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have had books. Gladly, we will see a rare warmth, warmth from the fire which is not burning, warmth from brave hearts which have courage to have doubts…

Asking Yourself Questions

…Give yourself time to think. I would say it is the main message from Fahrenheit 451. That is why it is so captivating to notice how Montag from the answers right off turned into the person who was not afraid of questions, even a hard one.

Firstly, he noticed how Clarisse was working his questions around, seeking the best answers she could possibly give.

Secondly, he started to give himself time to think. Here is the dialogue, for instance:

‘I’m inclined to believe you need the psychiatrist’, said Montag.

‘You don’t mean that.’

He took a breath and let it out and at last said, ‘No, I don’t mean that’.

We see Montag taking a breath before the answer and we believe his words. As we believe in a direct simple line he thought here.

‘You have forgiven me, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’ He thought about it. ‘Yes. I have.’

And, finally, Montag starts to appreciate a question:

For example, when Clarisse asks him about children: ‘Why you haven’t any daughter like me, if you love children so much?’ Montag answers: 

‘It was a good question. It’s been a long time since anyone cared enough to ask. A good question.’

In this way — not being afraid of questions, realising reality — we see emerging sparkles of immense changes in this kingdom of falsehood. The doubts of one — even a dead one —  become the doubts of another.

Montag hesitated, ‘Was — was it always like this? The firehouse, our work? I mean, well, once upon a time…’ <…>

He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McCelellan saying: ‘Didn’t firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?’

The inverted world  (inspired, for instance, as Bradbury said, by Alice in Wonderland)  has all answers and reasons ready: Take my word for it, says Montag to Clarisse. Take my word for it, says Beatty to Montag.

And you… please, do not take my words for it. Sit in a comfortable chair, open Fahrenheit, 451, and read it. Do not be afraid to stop reading. To stop to think or to give the story up if you do not like it. Just chose another book.