Symbolism in Fahrenheit 451

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Symbolism in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel, Fahrenheit 451, shows a world in which censorship booms and the media has taken over. Bradbury applies a great deal of symbolism in his story to get readers to think about what things really mean. Fire has such a great involvement in the novel. Bradbury uses symbolism to let his readers have a deeper understanding of the novel as a whole. The hearth and the salamander, fire, and the phoenix all have hidden meanings that they symbolize. The Hearth and the Salamander is a rather large example of symbolism; both having things to do with fire. The hearth is a source of warmth and goodness, showing the positive, non-destructive side of fire. It is controlled and helps you, the fire that doesn’t hurt. The salamander is quite the opposite. In mythology it supposedly was a lizard-like animal able to live in fire. It was also known for throwing fire out of his mouth. Guy Montag is rather similar to a salamander, because he works with fire, and endures it, but also believes that he can escape the fire and survive, much like a salamander does. In the novel, the salamander is the name of their fire trucks, and one of the firemen’s symbols on their uniforms, “But he knew his mouth had only moved to say hello, and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm and the phoenix-disc on his chest, he spoke again” (4). These two symbols are very important for Montag’s view of fire since it shows him how fire can not only have a destructive use but also a helpful controlled use. The phoenix is a symbol for renewal, for life that follows death in a cleansing fire. A phoenix is a mythical bird that, at the end of its five-hundred-year existence, it perches on its nest of spices and sings until sunlight ignites the masses. After the body is consumed in flames, a worm emerges and develops into

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