“the incineration of knowledge and wisdom”
Fahrenheit 451

Kati Hernandez
10/28/14
AP English 12 Period 1

Three Questions 1. When the story starts, what are the forces acting on Montag?

2. Why would Montag read the poem “Dover Beach,” by Matthew Arnold to Mildred and her friends and how is it significant to the novel?

3. Once Montag becomes an insubordinate, why does the government capture an innocent man instead of tracking down Montag?

Literary Criticism

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 follows the protagonist Guy Montag, a fireman living in a dystopic society where books are illegal and burnt if found. Instead of reading citizens watch copious amounts of television . Conversations with pedestrians are unheard of until Montag meets Clarisse, “seventeen and insane”(Bradbury 7). She asks multiple questions about his life, one question which changes his outlook on his entire life, “Are you happy?”(Bradbury 10). After his conversation with Clarisse, Montag is conflicted with his job, his disposition, and his desire for knowledge and wisdom. Using a variety of literary elements throughout Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury emphasizes that wisdom and knowledge are acquired through experience and critical thinking. Bradbury uses allegory and alliteration to develop the idea that the censorship and the distractions of society leads to the gradual decay of knowledge. While on the subway, Montag remembers his childhood memory of himself sitting on a yellow dune and pouring sand through a sieve near the sea, "...trying to fill a sieve with sand...And the faster he poured, the faster it sifted through with a hot whispering. His hands were tired, the sand was boiling, the sieve was empty" (Bradbury 78). The sand represents knowledge and the sieve represents the mind. Bradbury uses the memory of Montag pouring sand through a sieve to say that when