Significance Of Fire In Fahrenheit 451

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Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a profound novel that deals with shocking potential of technology and man’s use of it. The author wanted to warn future generations of the dangers of technological advancement; what is currently viewed as positive could one day be our very downfall. One day nature may be exploited as a means to burn our humanity, with the only survivor being the very thing that caused it. Bradbury employs many symbols throughout Fahrenheit 451 to convey all of these ideas in a deeper, more meaningful way. In particular, the symbolism employed by the author revolves heavily around the element of fire. In fact, every literary component of Fahrenheit 451 includes fire in some form. There are two different kinds of fire expressed in the novel: a burning, destructive fire and a fierce, creating fire, and these two fires are in direct conflict with each other …show more content…
His fire was blackening. It was the solution to every problem, because it put an end to existence. When books became a problem, the solution was to burn them. This fire acted as the barrier between thoughtless, submissive society and freedom through independence. Collective society was able to use it as a distraction because fire burned thought. They could not think about cruel reality when they did not even know how to think in the first place. It was powerful enough to the destroy words and ideas which stemmed originally from the opposing fire: the same fire present in Clarisse. Beatty was, in the most literal sense, fighting fire with fire. Fire cannot extinguish other fire, however, which is why Clarisse’s flame was destined to live on in Montag. Just before he killed the Fire Captain, Montag realized, “Beatty wanted to die” (116). The destroying fire had burned Beatty from the inside out. It changed him into someone who was no one. He had no reason to live any