Fahrenheit 451 is a story about a future society that lives like mindless zombies and are considered socially awkward. In this world firemen burn books instead of put out fires. It follows fireman Guy Montag over a period of time where his thinking process changes drastically because of the influence of books.
Guy Montag is the main character of this story and is a dynamic character.
He like all other people in this world are influenced by the media that is produced and is very simple minded. We see this change during the course of the story starting with the arrival of Clarisse. She was the first person we see in this world that actually thinks for herself and is considered anti social. The questions she asks Montag are simple but is still enough to get his brain turning because after his first encounter with her, he begins questioning things on why things work the way they do. It's then we see a new Montag who isn't content with his life and starts looking for ways to change how society works
Mildred is Guy Montags wife and she is a static character. She is very narrow minded and doesn't care about anything but her "walls" and "seashells". During Montage transformation he asks her question and talks to her in a way she just ignores or give selfish, simple answers too. A moment of this is when Montag is tell her about his experience with the burning woman in which she replies "I hate her, she shouldn't have had books". Nothing ever matters to her unless it's going to get her in trouble and she shows this when she reports Montag for possesion of books.
Clarisse is also a static character, but only because she had no time to develop in the story. When she is first introduced she already comes off as different from other people. She is the reason for Montags dramatic changes.I believe she would have became a dynamic character if she hadn't died.
Captain Beatty is a dynamic character with Montag. Around the same time we also begin seeing Beatty turn into the antagonist of the story when Montag starts finding out more and more about the truth. In the scenes coming to his death, the reader can start to see that he is very knowledgeable about books and is heard quoting famous writings like Shakespeare.
Ray Bradbury uses different literary element throughout the story. It seemed that one of the most used was foreshadowing. We see this right at the beginning of the story when Montag looks at the vent and sees a shadowy outline in there. It's not until later that we find out that there are books hidden in the vent which shows that he was interested even before clarisse came along. The mechanical hound was another source of foreshadowing when Montag first arrives at the fire station. The hound seemed not to like him already and later on, that hound would be trying to kill him.
Bradbury also uses symbols throughout the story to give readers more meaning to what they are seeing. One mentioned throughout the story is the salamander which is on the firemens uniform, I had to look up the meaning behind it which came up mentioning that the salamander is believed not to burn but I find it quiet ironic that Beatty burns to death. Another symbolic thing in this story is the phoenix. At the end of the story, Granger talks of how society is a phoenix and will be reborn once again after the city is bombed by jets.
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