Fahrenheit 451: War!
Here are two interesting facts about war and human civilisation:
- During the past 3,500 years, there have been only 230 years of ‘peace’ in the world (i.e. times when there has been no declared ‘war’).
However…
- The past 200 years have been the most peaceful in human history, even with two World Wars, and the 21st century has been the most peaceful period in recorded history.
So should we be optimistic or pessimistic about mankind’s tendency towards violent conflict? We have developed (and continue to develop) weapons of unprecedented and unnatural destructive force, but at the same time we have become increasingly effective at controlling and restricting their production and use.
How will war impact upon the future of mankind?
In Fahrenheit 451, there is the ever-present threat of war, although many of the characters remain oblivious to it until the very end of the novel. Look closely at the following sections of your novel, highlighting and annotating as needed so that you can chart the development of the war that ultimately destroys Montag’s world:
- Page 22: first reference to the jets, which become an increasingly important and intrusive symbol of this wider conflict.
- Page 45: a radio broadcast, cut off mid-sentence, gives us the first direct reference to the possibility of an impending war.
- Page 96: Montag, for the first time, questions what is occurring in relation to the war, and reveals some key information about this world’s past and the wider impact of this lifestyle on other peoples.
- Page 113-116: Faber discusses the impending and inevitable role of war in breaking the current form of society, suggesting that such a society is unsustainable.
- Page 202-210: the war begins an ends with the use of nuclear weapons against the cities. The old world is wiped away. Pay close attention to the discussion of the phoenix metaphor, and the potential for ‘stopping the cycle’ of conflict.
Remember that, at the time of the writing of Fahrenheit 451, the threat of nuclear war was constant and real. People believed that would see it in their lifetime (Montag mentions that the first atomic war was in 1960 – this date is just 3 years after the novel was first published). The growing realisation of the sheer destructive force of these weapons would have been frightening beyond belief – there is simply no comparison that can be drawn to any technology or capability that had existed previously. The aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki undoubtedly influenced Bradbury:
After having read through the relevant sections of Fahrenheit 451, answer the following questions:
- Is this a happy ending? Why/why not?
- What is the effect of war in the novel? In particular, how does it influence the ending of the novel?
- Why do you think the people of Montag’s society seemed to care so little about the threat of nuclear war?
What impact does this ending have on Bradbury’s message?- Can you think of any other stories (novels, films or TV shows) which explore the idea of war and its place in mankind’s future? You may want to think about other dystopian or post-apololyptic stories.
- What is the role of war in today’s world, and how will this influence our future?
Final Question: How will war impact upon the future of mankind?
Bradbury presents us with two possible paths for the future of mankind. On the one hand there is the path symbolised by the phoenix, which “every few hundred years…built a pyre and burnt himself up” (Fahrenheit 451, p.208). It is a cycle of destruction and rebirth, destruction and rebirth, with society always returning to the inevitable conclusion whereby it destroys itself, only to be reborn from the ashes, grow, make the same mistakes, and destroy itself again, and so on. In a world that has just come out of the experiences of the First World War, the Second World War, and has now emerged into the Cold War, with the Korean War now underway and threatening another major conflict, such a view seems very plausible.
However, Bradbury also uses Granger to present a different alternative. The war came and yet again wiped out the increasingly self-destructive society the had developed. Out of the ashes, a new idea is posed:
“We know the damn silly things we just did. We know all the damn silly thing we’ve done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we’ll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them…
“We’re remembering. That’s where we’ll win out in the long run. And some day we’ll remember so much that we’ll build the biggest goddam steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up.” (Fahrenheit 451, p.209)
The story therefore ends on a note of hope – that by remembering, learning from the past, seeking out the ‘quality’ and ‘textured’ information that Faber discusses, and learning from it – that mankind has the potential to break free from the cycle of destruction and embark on a new path.
Which vision of the future is, in your view, the most likely? Which is happening now, and what is most likely in the future? How will war impact upon the future of mankind?
