Fahrenheit 451 Book Talk

Description: Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a dystopian future where books are banned. The main character is Guy Montag, a firefighter in which the profession is dedicated not to putting out fires, but destroying books. He and his co-firefighters get a call whenever someone is caught harboring books. It is there that Guy and the firefighters burn all the books being harbored, even burning the criminal if they resist. Otherwise, the criminal is arrested.

Guy is married to Mildred who is infatuated with their televisions, which are the size of the entire wall. She even has a television “family” that she watches and sometimes “interacts” with, capable due to technology. They both seem happy, as well as the entirety of the society shown here, but there are underlining things that heavily question this. Mildred at the beginning of the story actually attempts suicide by taking too many pills, and Montag finds her and calls the “emergency hospital” which sends a team of two who arrive with a machine that sucks all of her blood out, removes the poison and replaces the blood back into her body. She is out for a while, but reawakes and continues on with life ignoring the event entirely. In this society there is a superficial happiness that many belong too. This is made more evident when Montag meets Clarisse.

Clarisse introduces a new perspective of the world to Montag. She shows him for the first time the joy of simple natural things like catching raindrops in your mouth, and smelling the fresh air and flowers. This awoke in montage something that would radicalize montage completely. Montag began to see the brokenness in the society he lived in, how nobody else cared about such natural things in the world, the beauty in things real. Rather, everyone was consuming television and ignoring their depression and drug overdose’s with television families and feigned interest in social gatherings.

Books are illegal, free thought is limited, and people are complacently comfortable in some false sense of reality. Montag, after meeting Clarisse, begins to change. He encounters books in a different way. He sets to burn one, as is his duty, and ends up pocketing it. He reads it and see’s some of the same beauty that Clarisse showed him. This change in Montag propels him to seek out books and eventually become a criminal himself.

Rationale: I chose this text because I find it to be culturally relevant, considering our society’s own technological dependency, where some degree of social value and perception is held to ones success in social media platforms, i.e. facebook, instagram, snapchat. While our society is much different from that in Fahrenheit 451, there are some similarities to be made, and I think getting students to make those connections is very valuable in preserving Bradbury’s original intent for the work as a warning to our very own society.

I first read this book in school in 10^th grade which seems like an appropriate grade level for this book. However, I also worked with my first mentor teacher when this book was being taught to the 8^th graders. It seemed like a challenge to the students, but I saw evidence of their comprehension, and it was encouraging. I worked with a small group of students who needed some extra help and we read it and discussed it together. The students overall comprehension and critical thought of the book and its ideas were very good.

Teaching Ideas:

1. Have students read on their own and work in groups to discuss each section. Read with students who may be struggling.

            2. Assess their comprehension every 50 pages or so, to make sure they understand pivotal information.

            3. Pose questions that get the class thinking about how this book relates with our society; i.e. how similar, how different. Don’t give it away; encourage the students thought development of the books message.

Obstacles: This book has some controversy surrounding it for some minor profanity and the banning/burning of the bible. It is banned in some schools. (I bet Bradbury wouldn’t mind).