Ha, Kevin
Period 3
Eng 2A
April 21st, 2008
BOOK REPORT
PART I
Fahrenheit 451 Fiction
Ray Bradbury 179 Pages
SETTING
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, takes place in an unspecific city. However, it is certain that the time period is in the future. We can see that technology has improved to mechanical hounds, capable of tracking victim by the scent of chemicals, and common recovery of suicidal attempts with a machine. Bradbury also included the policy of books being illegal. This policy leads to the duty of firemen; instead of preventing fire, they are asked to start fire and burn any books that exist in the city. Furthermore, because books were illegal, we can infer that schools did not exist either. I can further infer that the reason for careless speed driving on the streets were because of not having a school to teach the wrong-doings in the society.
PLOT
The type of conflict found in the book is a “man vs. society”. The main character, Guy Montag, works as a fireman, in which they are to start fire instead of preventing fire. His meeting of a seventeen year-old girl, Clarisse McClellan, led him to open his mind and start to question about the life he is living. Furthermore, on a “book alarm” run, he experienced an old woman setting herself on fire rather than burning the books. This made Montag to start questioning his job as a fireman and wondering the reason a person would suicide for books. Montag started to go against society by reading books; books he had kept and hidden behind an air ventilation machine. Captain Beatty, the head of the fire department, came over to Montag’s house and starts to lecture him about the reason of burning books. As Montag is denial of her reasons, Beatty figured Montag has hidden books and lets him know he had twenty-four hours to turn in the books for burning. As Montag convinced his wife, Mildred, to support him and let him read his books, he contacted an old man, who was once an English professor,...