The term "dystopia" was first used in the late 19th century, though not in its modern form. The first authors to approach literature with a completely pessimistic outlook for the future were called "Cataclysmic" writers. They shared a common fear or distaste for the rapid pace of change, and as a result became defensive against their modern society. Much of their literature contained visions of the apocalyptic end of the world at the hands of men with technology (Munkner). The world could not get better, they reasoned, only worse. Their work has a distinctly pessimistic tone, which embodied all of the bitterness felt by those left behind by society's rapid pace.
A dystopian author does not generally have such a bitter tone to their work. Rather, theirs is prophetic in nature, suggesting that if society does not change, one possible result will be the destruction of humanity, the death of freedom, or other sort of cultural downfall. George Orwell's 1984 shows a triumph of oppressive government in England, where every aspect of a person's life is controlled, including (and most importantly) their own thoughts. Written in 1948, it was the author's vision of a possible future that lay only thirty six years away. Another British author, Anthony Burgess, had a similarly bleak vision for humanity in A Clockwork Orange, where vicious gangs of teenagers commit unspeakable acts of violence and the government responds by trying to brainwash them into becoming "good citizens." Unlike the literature of the Cataclysmics, in dystopian writing the world itself does not end; rather, life as a free entity ceases to exist.
Enter Guy Montag of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Montag is a fireman, but not in the traditional sense where fires are extinguished. It is Montag's job to set fires. Upon receiving an alarm, he and his fire company dash off in their "Salamander" fire truck with kerosene hoses and flame throwers at the ready. What they are searching for is something horribly subversive to their modern culture - books. Books have been made illegal because of their conflicting viewpoints (Trout). Montag's boss, Beatty, explains: "Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's cabin. Burn it…. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag." (Bradbury, 89). Without the promotion of free thought, the population is free to be bombarded by non-stop visceral pleasures and entertainment. Interactive wall-sized televisions are commonplace, there is always music playing from large speakers on a musical wall with bright, moving patterns. This keeps the public happy and sedated, and frees them from worry of the ever-present threat of nuclear holocaust, which is broadcast on the radio and evidenced with flights of jets roaring overhead several times a day. The people are sheep, selling their awareness for brief pleasures. "People want to be happy, isn't that right?… Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit, our culture provides plenty of these." (Bradbury, 89). Bradbury's novel differs from those of Orwell and Burgess in that there is no controlling government - people have done this to themselves. Says Captain Beatty: "There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God." (Bradbury, 87).
Most of Bradbury's message in Fahrenheit 451 is brought across by the use of symbolism. The predominant symbol is, of course, fire. The title of the book is the temperature at which book paper burns, and all firemen have this number on their uniforms and on their lighters. The vehicle they drive is called a Salamander, which is a creature often associated with fire in folklore (Twayne's). In the beginning of the story, fire is most commonly associated with burning as a destructive force. The book commences with the line "It was a pleasure to burn" (Bradbury, 33) and continues with "It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, too see things blackened and changed…. the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning." (Bradbury, 33). Fire is also continuously referred to as a cleansing agent. Captain Beatty sums it up succinctly: "Fire is bright and fire is clean." (Bradbury, 89). A more sterile form of eradication simply does not exist. However, the martyrdom of an old woman who will not abandon her books gets Montag thinking about just how perfect their society is (Twayne's). At the end, Montag and the fire symbol have turned around. As he warms himself with the dispossessed English professors, he notes that this fire is different because "It was not burning, it was warming." (Bradbury, 171). The change in the nature of fire is exactly parallel to the change in the nature of Montag - what was in the beginning a menace to thought and culture is now a bright light in the darkness.
Literary critic Willis E. McNelly made another connection between Montag and fire - the idea that Montag is representative of both a phoenix and humanity (McNelly). The rebirth of the phoenix takes place in a great burst of flame, and Montag's rebirth is surrounded with the idea of flame - his burning of books, to destroying his own home, to killing Beatty with the flame thrower, to the warmth of the campfire. Bradbury seems to concur. One of Montag's new companions compares the human race rather scathingly to the Phoenix, something he calls "a damn silly bird." (Bradbury, 188). Humans have one difference, he says, in that they know the stupid thing they just did. Whether or not they choose to learn from it is left to the reader to decide.
A different but equally useful element that Bradbury utilizes is satire. The purpose of satire is to make something serious into something comic with the intent to make it look ridiculous. The best example of satire in the book is when Montag is trying to make sense of the television programs beloved by his wife Mildred. The programs seem disjointed and confusing, even to Mildred, who is the chief partaker: "What was it all about? Mildred couldn't say. Who was mad at whom? Mildred didn’t quite know. What were they going to do? Well, said Mildred, wait around and see." (Bradbury, 75). The vacuous way that people think is also satirized in snippets of dialogue - Mildred's friends limit their discussion to "'Doesn't everyone look nice!' 'Nice.' 'You look fine, Millie!' 'Fine.' 'Everyone looks swell!' 'Swell!'" (Bradbury, 121-122). Such stimulating intellects are the result of the wonders of this entirely visual culture. Bradbury's satire is directed not at the ideals of America, but at the possible negative extremities, antiintellectualism, and "the American innocence that assumes totalitarianism can't happen here." (Twayne's). The use of satire is sometimes more effective than outright criticism, because of the implied neutral state of the writer - the audience cannot always tell that there is a bias at all.
Interestingly, there is also an element of the Cataclysmic technology paranoia in Fahrenheit 451. Fast "beetle" cars race around at speeds over one hundred miles per hour (Montag refers to the national minimum speed as fifty-five). This in turn engenders violence as drivers in the grips of road rage run down and kill pedestrians for fun. There is such a high death rate that suicides are dismissed casually, teenagers routinely kill each other for sport, and the police care nothing for such transgressions as long as everyone has ten thousand insurance. The end of the book is also a triumph of technophobia, as the much forecast war finally breaks out and the city is obliterated in a matter of seconds. The people are happily oblivious even until the end. Montag thinks of his wife, Mildred: "He saw her leaning toward the great shimmering walls of color and motion where the family talked and talked and talked to her… and said her name and smiled and said nothing of the bomb that was an inch, now a half inch, now a quarter inch from the top of the hotel. Leaning into the wall as if all the hunger of looking would find the secret of her sleepless unease there. Mildred, leaning anxiously nervously, as if to plunge, drop, fall into that swarming immensity of color to drown in its bright happiness." (Bradbury, 184).
Bradbury's influence for Fahrenheit 451 was not only what he saw as the slow but steady destruction of American culture, but also the policies of one of the most influential figures of the 1950's - Senator Joe McCarthy. McCarthy's desire to hunt down and eliminate anything that might be morally subversive or lead to a Communist foothold in the United States is much the same as Captain Beatty's desire to destroy all works of literature. And, like the Americans following McCarthyism, the citizens of Montag's town allow the destruction because they believe it to be for their own good. The chief prophesy of Fahrenheit 451 is that thought control always comes disguised as new and wonderful systems, whether Fascism, Communism, or McCarthyism (Twayne's). Bradbury's function is to make people see, and above all think, before all is lost.
Although Bradbury's citizens fall short of the level of loss that happens with the citizens of Oceania in Orwell's 1984, who are conditioned to a phenomenon known as "doublethink," where what the Party says is real, and anything to the contrary never existed, they do share something in common: they are hopelessly adrift from each other and society. The complacent public of the real world are the downtrodden masses of the dystopian future, and the dystopian authors are the real-life counterparts of their leading characters, for they write as Orwell's Winston Smith does: "To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone - to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone: From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, … from the age of doublethink - greetings!" (Orwell, 26-27). Their weapons, like those of their characters, are books. Ray Bradbury's words are magnified through symbolism and satire, but in the end, the effectiveness of these techniques is up to those in the world who read and understand. Winston writes "If there is hope, it lies in the proles." (Orwell, page 60), and the ex-professor Granger at the end of Fahrenheit 451 tells Montag that, once the war is over, they can begin to help people recover what they have lost. Bradbury is using his skill to warn the world of a potential dystopian fate - it is up to the world to accept him.
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