Fahrenheit 451: Author's values and attitudes, perspective

Fahrenheit 451 is a book that orients around the perfect society and human nature theme.  The reader can gather many of the author, Ray Bradbury, attitude and values from this novel.  Bradbury probably values imagination, freedom, and creativity.  The reader can tell these are important to him because he writes of a world without any of those things, and the world fails.  Imagination is important because Bradbury creates the character Clarisse. Clarisse is different than any other character in the book because she enjoys life rather than just walking through it like other characters in the novel.  She represents Bradbury's value of imagination because she makes Montag realize how sad his life is.  Bradbury also values freedom.  The reader can assume this because the way Bradbury makes society so constricting.  People in this society are all basically robots and cannot have free thinking.  Books are burned so that they cannot have their own opinions and they cannot find out how to think for themselves.  Literature encourages free thinking, therefore authorities took away freedom by destroying literature. One last value that can be seen through Bradbury's work is creativity.  Books are inspiring and they make readers want to create something of their own!  In this novel, creativity was feared and shunned.  The firemen are supposed to burn books so that no one will try to be creative.  These values are all feared and discouraged in the novel, but it makes the reader value them more because a world without them seems awful.

Bradbury's attitude in this novel was righteous and rebellious.  Bradbury obviously hates the fact that books can be banned so he wrote this novel.  He shows a world of small-mindedness and it is not a good world.  His attitude is shown through the main character, Guy Montag.  He makes Montag a rebellious character to show his attitude during this novel.  He shows through Montag that this banning of books will always be seen through by righteous people and that it will not last.

The perspective of this novel is from Montag's point of view.  The author still shows some vague thoughts of the other characters so the reader can see more into the story.  This is a good perspective for this novel to be written in because the reader knows certain things other characters do not.  

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1996. Print.