Fahrenheit 451: Burning a Hole in Your Head - Grant Hiskes
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The afterword of Ray Bradbury’s timeless classic novel Fahrenheit 451 claims that only later did he realize he had subconsciously named the protagonist, Guy Montag, after a paper company and the voice in Montag’s ear (literally) a one-time English professor Faber after a pencil company. I call bullshit, yet I applaud Bradbury for what I believe to his prudent intentionality.
In the dystopian world laid out by Bradbury, Montag follows his ancestral tradition and takes the job of a fireman. These “firemen” don’t put out fires though, they bring the fire. When someone reports a neighbor having a book from the forbidden list that features millions of titles ranging from the works of Marcus Aurelius to William Shakespeare, the firemen come to incinerate the books and their hiding spots.
Montag’s boss, Captain Beatty, lays out the rationale for the burning at the end of Part 1, “The Heart and the Salamander”. Reading the works of the great minds that came before us makes us think. Thinking makes people uncomfortable because it gives them new ideas and views, perspectives that may confuse them and be hard to understand. This confusion makes the people uncomfortable, which translates to people not fitting this alternate world’s definition of “happy”.
So what is “happy” in this world? Montag’s wife Mildred is said to be happy. Mildred is almost unarguably the dullest, emotionless character in the book. But Mildred is said to be “happy” because she has three “TV walls” and if she’s ever bored she just whips out the good ole’ sleeping pills, which seem to make for a killer high. The book acknowledges though that Mildred is empty on the inside if that was not inferred by her 1 (on a 1 to 10 scale) personality.
Mildred does not read or indulge in any education of history or the classics. She even happens to be the one who turns Montag in when she discovers his book, right before leaving him (again, total 1). At the beginning of the story, Montag does not really do much reading either. As the story progresses though, we see Montag grow more interested in books after Captain Beatty shows him his library. Montag morphs into a canvas or vehicle to carry out the narratives of the past. After all, “Montag” is a reference to paper. However, without any writing or information, Montag is a worthless piece of paper - and also empty.
That’s where the role of Faber (the “pencil”) comes into play. Back when English professors were allowed, Faber preached of the ideas of the greatest thinkers to ever pace the earth. The aging Faber is what the “paper” needs to be useful. After hearing Clarisse, a perky and curious teenage girl who befriends Montag in the first few pages of the book, has died, his house is burnt to a crisp, and his wife leaves him, Montag remains inspired. The ideas and curiosity inspired by Faber have essentially been scrawled on the paper which is represented by Montag.
Unfortunately, this world is doomed. The masses are too enthralled with quick sensations like the snappy nature of TV, which Bradbury explains in an interview for the book’s 50th Anniversary, and so empty that they resort to horrible options like dropping atomic bombs on cities to end the wars quickly, but obliterate them into smithereens. Fahrenheit 451 serves as a warning for the generations to come of the shortcomings that arise from letting non-sustaining sensations and vices impede the beautiful capabilities of our minds to think outside our comfort zones and learn from the most revered thinkers. Bradbury is not instructing us to study history so “it does not repeat itself”, but to read and study to energize us and fill us up with wisdom and energy to make positive, sustained change for the years to come.
