Fahrenheit 451 Opinion

I enjoyed Fahrenheit 451. As a science fiction reader, I have to say that this was my favorite book that I have read over the three summers as a Honors English student. The originality of it as well as the shock of firemen, traditionally the good guys, burning down houses, and even people, intentionally, was a very nice change in pace from the depressing Grapes of Wrath. The future world was backed up without too many plot holes in a way that even 50 years after it was published, the future America could still come to be. Ray Bradbury really made an effective story that is very stimulating and thought provoking (oh the irony) after half a century. The only thing that I disliked was the fact that the main character, Montag, couldn't stand up for himself. When he tried he either failed (with the women reading poetry [Bradbury 100]) or he couldn't do it without someone in his ear (Faber telling him how to respond to Beatty's verbal bombarded assault [Bradbury 107]). Montag is the main character and should be a good moral character and one with good heroic qualities. But not Montag. He is not even an anti-hero because he can't do anything for himself. He is just the character used to narrate from.

As a trio of books, this summer was the best, followed close by sophomore year, and lagging in the back is freshman year. Old Man and the Sea was really nice and easy to write about. The plot was clean and simple, there was only four characters and it was short. There was the symbolic Christianity references but I caught on to those at the end. Grapes of Wrath was a slow read, but gave me a lot of insight into the Great Depression era. Fahrenheit 451 was a little bit longer than Old Man and the Sea, but went into more detail with pretty much everything but the character development. Santiago is my favorite character from this summer's required reading. Ma is a close second, and although she was only really in the first 47 pages (as that is when Mildred remembers to tell Guy that Clarisse is dead) is Clarisse.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.