Symbols In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, he separates the story into three parts and uses the titles as a metaphor to help further the plot and show the development of his characters. He uses these three parts to tell a story within the story itself, a story of a man trying to win back his right to think on his own. The titles represent his struggles and his triumphs, which ultimately in the end all tie together to create the overall theme of the novel. Bradbury divides this story into three parts because he wants to show the development of Montag as a character, his struggle with society’s flaws, and the future of humanity if we continue to reject change.
In the first part of the story, “The Hearth and the Salamander”, the reader is introduced …show more content…
He is beginning to see all of the things that his society has been missing, and like Clarisse, he questions the motives and rules that people choose to follow. The Sieve in the part is represented by Montag’s idea of what books really are and what they could mean. When he first starts to actually read them, he compares what he reads to Clarisse and how she would react or how it spoke about her personality. “These men have been dead a long time, but I know their words point, one way or another, to Clarisse.” (Bradbury 74). Montag thinks so much about Clarisse and what she has said to him about the way the world used to be that he is trying to make sense out of the things he is reading based on Clarisse and her words. The Sand is represented by Mildred and her friends and everyone else who is oblivious to the fake world that they are living in. “I’ve always said poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush! Now I’ve had it proved to me. You’re nasty, Mr. Montag, you’re nasty!” (Bradbury 103). After Montag finishes reading an excerpt from a book of poetry, Mildred’s friends leave very upset, and Montag is left with Faber calling him a fool, because that’s what he is; a fool. Everyone knows that it is impossible to fill up a sieve with sand, but Montag tries to do it anyway. He tries to make people understand …show more content…
After showing up at his own house to burn it down, the ability to hear Faber is snatched away by Beatty and Montag is left to make decisions on his own. “Burning Bright” is a symbol of Beatty and his death, and Montag rising from the ashes. Captain Beatty is meant to portray society and everything that it stands for, and how in the end it will lose to the underdogs that it deemed unacceptable. When he dies, it represents what the downfall of society will be; fire. The thing that they used so much of will be their downfall, and only the people who were against it the entire time will be victorious. After Montag reaches the safe place by the railroad tracks, one of his new companions, Granger, talks about a mythological bird called the phoenix. “But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did.” (Bradbury 165). In this case, Montag is the phoenix that Granger is talking about. He did the thing that was burning humanity, but he learned from it and once he burned himself up he rose up and decided to do something about it. He dealt with the problems along the way and he changed the future for the better in the end. That is what