Some symbols are very powerful and can be used in books to represent many things. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a book about censorship that uses fire as a symbol. Even the name of the book is meaningful because that is the temperature at which book paper burns. In Fahrenheit 451, fire has multiple meanings and can stand for destruction, cleansing, and change. Fire can be used to symbolize these things for both good and evil and so it plays a very important and complicated role in the book.
The story of Fahrenheit 451 is set in the future. Its main character is Guy Montag, who is a “fireman.” Unlike our firemen, in the novel a “fireman” is a person who starts fires rather than extinguishing them. The role of a fireman is to locate and burn books because Montag’s society has outlawed books and reading. In the beginning of the book, Montag is a loyal and valued fireman who has never questioned the morality of the banning of books. Eventually he meets a woman who tells him that people used to read books and firemen used to put out fires not start them. This forces Montag to start thinking about the system that he has been supporting. After this Montag begins to see many problems with the system and even sees that some people are willing to risk their lives for their books.
Montag becomes so curious that he begins to steal books. He hides them in his house and reads them when he has the chance. His wife is horrified and finally the firemen come to raid his house. He narrowly escapes and ends up in a colony of outcasts who memorize books to ensure that even if every book in the world is burned, great literature will not be lost.
The firemen and the people fighting against them both use fire to symbolize cleansing, but they are each hoping to cleanse different things. Captain Beatty and the firemen want to use fire to cleanse the world of knowledge, a thing that they think is evil. They want to use fire to erase people’s memories and problems. That is why Captain Beatty thinks people should be cremated after they are dead. Captain Beatty believes that fire can destroy anything and make problems disappear. When he explains that cremation is important to make people forget the dead, he says that they should “Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean” (60). He thinks that the only way to have a peacefully and happy society is to make people forget the past and ignore or forget anything that they do not like.
After something is burned, all that remains are ashes, and you cannot tell what the thing was. Captain Beatty thinks that if you cannot tell what the problem was, it will be completely destroyed and you will not have it anymore. Captain Beatty also says that burning books can help people get along. He says that if African American and White people feel offended by different books, then you should burn the books so they will not be offended and they will no longer disagree with each other.
When Montag sets Captain Beatty on fire he also wants to cleanse society of something he thinks is evil. Montag thinks that burning books is evil and Captain Beatty symbolizes the society of burning books. Montag also burns Captain Beatty to cleanse himself because he knows he has been doing something wrong all along by being a fireman and burning books. Montag has to kill Captain Beatty because the Captain is going to kill him. He also wants to do it to try to make up for what he has done by burning Captain Beatty so that the Captain cannot burn anymore books.
The first sentence of the novel introduces the role of fire saying “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (3). Obviously fire is a symbol of destruction, but in this quote fire has multiple functions: it destroys the book in one sense, but in another it changes the book and even creates something new.
Using fire as a symbol of change is interesting because in the very rigid society in which Montag lives very little change is actually possible. In fact, the goal of the ban on books is largely to prevent citizens from being able to think for themselves. If people cannot think for themselves they will not be able to even think of trying to change anything in their society. The burning of books is ironic because through changing them, changing society becomes impossible.
When Montag decides to change, he burns two things, his house, and Captain Beatty. Fire represents change in the scene where he aims the flamethrower at Captain Beatty and sets him on fire, killing the captain and allowing Montag to escape. Fire allows for change because without the use of fire, Montag would not have been able to escape. At the same time, after he sets fire to his house and to Captain Beatty, Montag has no choice but to change his life because there is no way to go back.
Later, Captain Beatty tells Montag that fire’s “real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you’re a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later” (115). Captain Beatty thinks that you if you burn something, you could make problems go away without having to face them because he believes that fire can only destroy. After Montag kills him, he turns to Captain Beatty’s body and says “you always said, don’t face a problem, burn it. Well, now I’ve done both” (116). He says this because he knows that fire can destroy a problem but to decide to burn something you have to face the problem first. Montag’s problem is that he wants society to change or if he cannot do that, he wants to live a different life. He burns Captain Beatty because that is the only way he sees to get free and change his life.
The phoenix is a bird that dies in fire when it is old and then is reborn in the same fire, and many people say represents change. The phoenix means different things to different people in Fahrenheit 451. For the firemen it means that if they burn book a new society can be born. Granger talks about a phoenix and how fire can symbolize rebirth. He says that the phoenix “must have been the first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of his ashes, he got himself born all over again” (163). Even though Granger does not think burning books is a good thing, he hopes that society will eventually realize what it has done wrong and a new time will come when they will value knowledge and reading again.
When Montag finally gets to Granger’s camp with the book people, he first sees them all sitting around a campfire warming their hands. In the beginning of the book fire seemed evil and was only used to destroy. Later, the book makes fire seem more like something that can bring change. In the end, the campfire is the opposite of the fire in the beginning. It is comforting and friendly. The people sitting around it are members of a group that is trying to save old knowledge from books and they are using an old method of staying warm. They are trying to save the knowledge in hopes that someday things will change and a new society will begin that will appreciate these things.
In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, fire can be good or evil. It can also symbolize destruction, change, and cleansing, and sometimes stands for all of these things at once. Fahrenheit 451 is a book about censorship where many people in the book believe that censorship is important to keep people content and peaceful. They are also afraid that if books exist people might read them. They want to stop people from even wanting to read, so instead of just banning books, they think the best way to censor books is to burn them. They think it will make all of their problems go away, and if it does not then they will just burn more and try to ignore any problems that are left that they do not like. Because of this, fire is a very powerful symbol in the novel and in their society.
