Fahrenheit 451 essay

Kellen Hamilton
Mrs. Thompson
Pre-AP English I
17 November 2014 The setting is in an American city somewhere in the 21st century. Ray Bradbury, the author, wrote Fahrenheit 451 in the 1950’s but was depicting a city far in the future. His predictions are quite accurate for how far in advanced they were made and some might even find it scary how good his predictions were. Unlike in today’s society, some of his predictions were wrong. Firefighters actually starting fires, books being destroyed instead of cherished, people in jet cars, and nuclear wars being regular occurrences are some of the short list of his wrong predictions. In Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to burn books but, later in the story, starts to keep them leading to his running from the city. Bradbury fills this book with many examples of metaphors, similes, and other figurative language devices as well as many tones throughout the story to add class and finesse to this literary work Many uses of figurative language are used in the book and can be found multiple times. Bradbury’s comment of sleeping in an “electronic ocean of sound” (Bradbury 10) is one example of a metaphor used. The electronic ocean represents a constant noise that goes on in their heads. This prevents any kind of thinking in individuals. Another metaphor for ocean that Bradbury writes about is in the quote, the “shore of an unsleeping mind.” (Bradbury 10) The electronic ocean prevents someone from dreaming in their sleep or even having any thoughts while asleep which leads to the shore of the unsleeping mind mentioned. Later on the lack of sleep this shows becomes obvious when people become crazy and delusional. Other than ocean, many other uses of figurative language were used including similes, personification, and hyperboles among others. In Fahrenheit 451, similes were another largely used use of figurative language. One section of the book that used similes was when a group of friends of Mildred’s, Montag’s wife, were described. The group was being extremely loud and obnoxious for Montag and so he began to describe them, his calling of them being “like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius” (Bradbury 89) goes to illustrate the point. It shows them to be very loud and rambunctious causing Montag to not be able to focus. This also illustrates the tone at this point of being satirical. The noise being created by the group was compared by Montag to “a monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes.” (Bradbury 89) This creates an image of the obvious noise which to some people could be unbearable. Montag goes on in the book to quiet them by reading poetry from a book which leads to the eventual burning of his house and his escape from the city. Personification and hyperboles are just some of the other uses of figurative language in the book aside from the similes and metaphors used earlier. Towards the end of the book,

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