Forbidden Books
March 20, 2015

The Gadfly for Montag

Four hundred fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit; the temperature at which knowledge burns. Fahrenheit 451 is one of Ray Bradbury’s most popular books, featuring the issue of censorship taking place in a distant future. In the 24th century, firemen have a new type of job, one that is quite ironic; they are assigned to start fires. Guy Montag is the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, yet he’s also one of those fire-starting firemen. These fires that they start are solely for the purpose of burning books of any kind. Information is completely wiped out so everyone can be exactly the same. You’d think this was a forced law from the government yet it’s actually quite the opposite. The people pledged this act of no books to the government themselves, and now as a result, all books are banned and, when found, burned by the firemen (like Guy Montag for instance). Yet even throughout this vast censorship, there are still gadflies that wake those under this deep slumber of false security. Gadflies are pests to most creatures, but they do provide awareness to our senses in a world where it’s dangerous to be too relaxed; Fahrenheit 451 condones this using major characters who stand for diversity and knowledge.

To start this off, around the beginning of the book, Guy Montag’s next door neighbor, 17 year old Clarisse McClellan, introduces herself to him. Bradbury utilizes this character as a gadfly by allowing her to question Montag’s career choices in being this type of fireman: “Are you happy?” (Bradbury 4) Clarisse asks. This influences Montag to take a moment and reflect upon destroying all of the books he finds, which he thought he was okay with before Clarisse opened his eyes. Clarisse was directly influencing Guy Montag and making him realize that what he has isn’t necessarily something he wants. At first, Montag was in denial, repeating to himself that he had to be happy because there wasn’t much else for him to be, but as sometime passes, he contemplates the concept of him not truly being happy. He’s slowly realizing what Clarisse meant by asking whether or not he was happy. Not all things are a great as they may seem, yet, surely that can’t always be the case for Montag, right?

Afterwards, Clarisse and Montag are having another conversation. Whilst holding a dandelion, Clarisse mentions that if you rub the dandelion on your chin, if any color goes along with it, you’re in love. She goes first and asks Montag to check, he states, “ ‘You’re yellow under there.’ ” And then soon after “Before he could move she had put the dandelion under his chin. He drew back and she laughed. ‘Hold still!’ She peered under his chin and frowned. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What a shame,’ she said. ‘You're not in love with anyone.’” (Bradbury 10) Montag was flabbergasted and doubtful of this mere myth, surely he had been in love, he has a wife. He reacted with “‘I am [in love]’” and a face that was intended to say I am yet there wasn’t an expression he could think of that symbolizes that. Montag had always believed he was in a happy marriage, despite the fact that his daunting, depressed wife attempted suicide and never speaks to him. He was married and that was it… Or was it? This incident unintentionally made Montag insecure and question his life decisions. So many questions flew in through his mind like is it right to have these books burned, should we continue to incinerate our only solid source of knowledge? Montag is being woken up from his slumber, the same sleep that everyone else calls bliss, the rest of ignorance. Montag is realizing the value of knowledge, and the purpose of diversity, and it’s all thanks to the gadfly known as Clarisse McClellan.

Later on in the book, a stray car is the cause of Clarisse’s death, or at least that’s what Montag is led to believe. The true cause of Clarisse’s death, or even if she actually died in the first place, is quite the mystery, yet even after death, she still has an impact to Montag. Every moment after the incident, Montag always refers back to her, and how crucial she was to his once set mind set. In a future where the walls to rooms are composed of nothing but television screens, a gadfly who is distant from the media is ideal. When a majority of society is rapt inside of a stasis where modern media is the only way to get information, it can be very easy to manipulate the sources. Books give us that access to information that can not be tainted, a concrete piece of evidence if it’s a documentation. Clarisse was the breath of fresh air that gave Montag the revelation of diversity. This book showed us why censorship shouldn’t be so strict to such wise literature that can either teach us, give us hope, or bring us into a new world.

Speaking of censorship, this book was ironically censored for it’s mature content, featuring mild language such as “damn”, “hell” and “abortion”. The book was banned from many public schools and even some libraries. I personally believe that for a book about censorship awareness to be censored like this isn’t justified, even if it was in 1967. The context of certain things such as a drunken man being changed to a sick man through censorship may matter to very young audiences, but for high schools to have censored versions is not really all that reasonable. Even Bradbury himself demanded that only the originals should be published in 1980, as he claimed this was a “mutilation” of his work when he saw the expurgated copy of the book.

Overall, Fahrenheit 451 displays censorship awareness and features a gadfly to the napping horse that is known as the society in this book. With Clarisse pushing Guy to ask questions about his life choices, whether or not what he does for a living is justified. As Guy ponders the question of whether or not he’s “happy” with burning all those books and if he truly was in love with the depressing, ill-minded Mildred, he starts to slowly take an interest in the books, and finds himself reading the bible. As he’s illegal hoarding a book, he finds out that these books should never have been banned in the first place, and in a turn of events, he begins to defend the very opposite of what his job once was. Reminiscent of Clarisse, he turns himself around in this futuristic world.

Works Cited

NA, The Mutilation and Rebirth of a Classic: Fahrenheit 451, Compass Falvey Memorial

Villanova University

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (pdf edition), Ballantine Books, 1953