Fahrenheit 451 Literary Techniques Essay

1102 Words5 Pages
In Ray Bradbury’s novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Bradbury explores the development of his protagonist Guy Montag. Guy gradually increases to rebel the dystopian society in which he is inhabited. Bradbury investigates this through a wide range of literary techniques to convey the development of his protagonist. At first, the reader is shown that Montag is pleased and contented with his life. This is proved by the effective and striking first line; ‘It was a pleasure to burn’ The reader may be potentially shocked at the interesting word choice as the noun ‘pleasure’ – which has strong positive connotations and linked with happiness and enjoyment – is juxtaposed with ‘burn’ which is associated with destruction. Illustrating a character who enjoys…show more content…
The effective noun ‘bees’ suggests Guy dislikes them because humans, as a group, are not particularly fond of ‘bees’. The verb ‘humming’ suggests Mildred is content and happy and has no care to talk to Montag and as they cannot simply talk to each other it highlights another fault. Guy is noticing these problems and realises that he and Mildred do not love each other as they should. Guy finds that this is common throughout his community and that it isn’t right, so he begins to rebel against it. Initial signs of Montag’s rebellion continue to occur throughout the novel. When he is told to burn down a woman’s house he protests to the other firemen as they are happy to burn her with the house as she refuses to get out. ‘You’re not leaving her here?’ Montag continues to argue and he urges the woman to save herself and get out. However the woman was willing to sacrifice herself because of the books and sets the house on fire herself, leaving her still inside but Guy and his crew enough time to escape. Another sign of Montag’s rebellion is when he meets Faber and they devise a plan to destroy the firehouses. ‘they would be Montag plus Faber, fire plus

More about Fahrenheit 451 Literary Techniques Essay

Open Document