華氏451度
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《華氏451度》（英語：Fahrenheit 451）是美國作家雷·布萊伯利所著的反烏托邦小說，出版於1953年，係改寫自1951年發表的中篇〈消防員〉（The Firemen）。故事敘述一個壓制思想自由的世界，所有的書都是禁書，所謂的消防員（英語裡的字面意義是「火人」）的工作不是滅火，而是焚書。
| 華氏451度 | |
|---|---|
| File:Farneheit 451.jpg First edition cover | |
| 作者 | 雷·布萊伯利 |
| 类型 | 反烏托邦小說 |
| 语言 | 英語 |
| 發行信息 | |
| 插圖 | Joe Mugnani |
| 出版机构 | Ballantine Books |
| 出版時間 | 1953 |
| 出版地點 | 美國 |
| 页数 | 199 頁 |
| 所获奖项 | Retro Hugo Award for Best Novel[*]、全国公共广播电台百佳科幻奇幻小说[*]、Prometheus Award - Hall of Fame[*] |
| 规范控制 | |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0-7432-4722-1 (硬皮版) |
Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian soft science fiction novella by Ray Bradbury that was published in 1953.
The novel presents a future in which most books are banned and critical thought is suppressed. The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this case, means "book burner"). 451 degrees Fahrenheit is stated as "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns …". (451 °F equals 233 °C) It was originally published as a shorter novella, The Fireman, in the February 1951 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. A film adaptation, by François Truffaut, was released in 1966, and another is anticipated. In addition to the movies, there have been at least two BBC Radio 4 dramatizations, both of which follow the book very closely.
Over the years, the novel has been subject to various interpretations, primarily focusing on the historical role of book burning in suppressing dissenting ideas. However, Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship, but is a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.[1]
Bradbury has stated that the entirety of his novel was written in the basement of UCLA's Powell library on a pay typewriter. His original intention in writing Fahrenheit 451 was to show his great love for books and libraries. He has often referred to Montag as an allusion to himself.
Plot summary
Fahrenheit 451 takes place in an unspecified future time in a hedonistic and rabidly anti-intellectual America that has completely abandoned self-control and bans the possession of books. People are now only entertained by in-ear radio and an interactive form of television. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman, certain that his job—burning books, and the houses that hold them, and persecuting those who own them—is the right thing to do.
It is by chance that one night he meets a girl named Clarisse McClellan, whose free-thinking ideals and liberating spirit cause him to question his life, his ideals, and his own perceived happiness; she is later killed in a "car accident". While ransacking the house of an old woman as part of his job, Montag accidentally reads a line in one of her books: "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine." This prompts him to steal a book. The woman then refuses to leave her house and her books, and sacrifices herself. This disturbs Montag greatly. Later, he is visited by his fire Chief (see below) Captain Beatty, who elucidates for him the "reasons" behind his job when he is at home pretending to be sick, pondering his thoughts. How it was society, in its search for happiness, that suppressed books; how the government simply took the opportunity given to it. Montag asks Beatty what would happen if he had taken a book. Beatty says that all firemen do it at one time or another and that they can turn it in within 24 hours. Montag argues with his wife over the book, showing his growing disgust for her and for his society.
It is soon revealed that Montag has hidden dozens of books in the house, and he tries to memorise them so their contents can be preserved, but becomes frustrated that the words seem to simply fall away. He then remembers a man he met before: Faber, a former English professor. Montag seeks Faber's help, and together they hatch a plot to slowly bring down the firemen's industry. Montag returns to the fire house and gives Beatty a book. During a card game, Beatty tells Montag he had a dream about him, and relates the literary argument he says they had in his dream. He quotes many books and shows a thorough knowledge of literature, but he uses that knowledge to defend the firemen's role. Then there is yet another call to arms, and Beatty theatrically leads the crew to Montag's own home. He reveals that he knew all along of Montag's books, and charges Montag himself to destroy the house solo. Montag goes to work, but is not content only to destroy the books. He burns the televisions and other emblems of his ignorant past life. He then burns and kills Beatty and knocks out two other firemen, a crime that makes him an enemy of the state.
He flees to Faber's house, with a futuristic hound and helicopters in pursuit. Faber tells him of vagabond book-lovers in the countryside. Then Montag, having washed off his scent in a local river, floats downstream and meets such a group—mostly older men—who, to Montag's astonishment, have memorized entire books, to be preserved orally until books are allowed again. They themselves burn the books they read to prevent them from being discovered; the true books are safely stored in their minds. The group leader, Granger, discusses the legendary phoenix and its endless cycle of long life, death in flames, and rebirth; he says the phoenix must be some relation of mankind.
At this point an international war that has been alluded to throughout the book begins, and Montag watches helplessly as the jets fly over the city and drop their bombs. His wife, Mildred, is killed in the explosions. It is implied that the bombs are nuclear. Montag and the homeless people return to the city to help rebuild their society in the manner of the Phoenix, hoping that humanity will learn from its mistakes and do better this time.
Characters
- Guy Montag is the protagonist and fireman (see above) whose metamorphosis is illustrated throughout the book and who presents the dystopia through the eyes of a loyal worker to it, a man in conflict about it, and one resolved to be free of it. Bradbury notes in his afterword that he noticed, after the book was published, that Montag is the name of a paper company.
- Faber is the former English professor who represents those who know what is being done is wrong, but are too fearful to act. Bradbury notes in his coda that Faber is part of the name of a German manufacturer of pencils, Faber-Castell.
- Mildred Montag is Montag's wife, who tries to hide her own emptiness and fear of questioning her surroundings or herself with meaningless chatter and a constant barrage of television. She constantly tries to reach the glorified state of happiness, but is inwardly miserable. Mildred even makes an attempt at suicide early on in the book by overdosing on sleeping pills. She is used symbolically as the opposite of Clarisse McClellan. She is known as Linda Montag in the 1966 film.
- Clarisse McClellan displays every trait Mildred does not. She is outgoing, naturally cheerful, unorthodox, and intuitive. She serves as the wake-up call for Guy Montag, by posing the question “why?” to him. She is unpopular among peers, and disliked by teachers for (as she puts it) asking why instead of how, and focusing on nature rather than technology. Montag always regards her as odd until she goes missing; the book gives no definitive explanation. But it is said that Captain Beatty and Mildred know that Clarisse has been killed by a car. Her behavior is similar to that of Leonard Mead from Bradbury's short story The Pedestrian
- Captain Beatty is Montag's boss and the fire chief. Once an avid reader himself, he is disgusted with the idea of books and detests how they all contradict and refute each other. In a scene written years later by Bradbury for the Farenheit 451 play, he invites Guy to his house where he shows him walls of books which he leaves to molder on their shelves. He tries to entice Guy back into the book-burning business, but is burnt alive by Montag when he underestimates Montag's resolve. Guy later realizes that Beatty might have wanted to die and provoked Guy until he did it. He is the symbolic opposite of Granger.
- Granger is the leader of a group of wandering intellectual exiles, who memorize books so they will be saved. Where Beatty destroys, he creates; where Beatty uses fire for the purpose of burning, he uses it for the purpose of warming. His acceptance of Montag is considered the final step in Montag's metamorphosis, from embracing Beatty's ultimate value (happiness and complacency), to embracing his value (love of knowledge).
- Mechanical Hound The mechanical hound exists in the original book but not in the film. It is an emotionless, mechanical killing machine that can be programmed to seek out and destroy free thinkers, hunting them down by scent; the hound is blind to anything but the destruction for which it is programmed. Bradbury notes in his afterword that the hound is "my robot clone of A. Conan Doyle's great Baskerville beast," referring to the famous Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles.
- Mildred's friends (Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps) Mildred's friends represent the average citizens in the numbed society that is described throughout the novel. They are examples of the people in this society who are not happy, but do not think they are unhappy. When they are introduced to literature, which symbolizes the pain and joy that has been censored from them, Mrs. Phelps is overwhelmed by the rush of emotion that she has not felt before.
Themes
The novel reflects several major concerns of the time of its writing, which has led to many interpreting it differently than intended by Bradbury (see "Critical interpretation vs. authorial intent" below). Amongst the themes attributed to the novel were what Bradbury has called "the thought-destroying force" of censorship in the 1950s, the book-burnings in Nazi Germany starting in 1933 and the horrible consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon. "I meant all kinds of tyrannies anywhere in the world at any time, right, left, or middle", Bradbury has said.[2]
Other themes attributed to the novel are:
- Individual Vs. Society
- Importance of Literature
- Value of entertainment over family, relationships and individually motivated lives
- Propaganda
- Censorship
- Knowledge Vs. Ignorance
- Life and Death
- Animal Imagery
- Technology
- Paradoxes
- Religion
- Apathy
One particularly ironic circumstance is that, unbeknownst to Bradbury, his publisher released a censored edition in 1967 that eliminated the words "damn" and "hell" for distribution to schools. Later editions with all words restored include a "Coda" from the author describing this event and further thoughts on censorship and "well-meaning" revisionism.
Critical interpretation vs. authorial intent
However prevalent this idea that the book is about state-sponsored censorship, Bradbury himself disputes this and is in fact annoyed by this interpretation of the book. He states rather firmly in a 2007 interview that the book is in fact about television's effect on reading, as he worried that television would be a destructive force against books.
| “ | Bradbury still has a lot to say, especially about how people do not understand his most famous literary work, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953. ... Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.[3] | ” |
Yet in the paperback version released in 1979, Bradbury wrote a new coda for the book containing multiple comments of censorship and its relation to the novel. The coda is also present in the 1987 mass market paperback, which is still currently sold.
| “ | There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from the book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever.
... Only six months ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place. |
” |
On yet another occasion, Bradbury observed that the novel touches on the alienation of people by media:
| “ | In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.[4] | ” |
Allusions and references in other works
The title of Bradbury's book has become a well-known byword amongst those who oppose censorship, in much the way George Orwell's 1984 has (although not to the same extent). As such, it has been alluded to many times, including in the ACLU's 1997 white paper Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace Burning? and Michael Moore's 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. Bradbury objected to the latter's allusion to his work, claiming that Moore "stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission.".[5] However, others pointed out that Bradbury himself lifted titles and lines from other authors verbatim, including Walt Whitman's I Sing the Body Electric, a poem from his Leaves of Grass collection.[來源請求]
Artist Micah Wright used the theme "Hand all books to your local fireman for safe disposal" overlaid on a 1940s fireman propaganda poster.
Hungarian poet György Faludy includes the lines in the opening stanza of his 1983 poem "Learn by Heart This Poem of Mine": "Learn by heart this poem of mine, / Books only last a little time, / And this one will be borrowed, scarred, [...] / Or slowly brown and self-combust, / When climbing Fahrenheit has got / To 451, for that's how hot / it will be when your town burns down. / Learn by heart this poem of mine."[6]
The theme and plot of the movie Equilibrium, starring Christian Bale, Sean Bean and Dominic Purcell, draws heavily from Fahrenheit 451 (as well as from 1984 and Brave New World).
Ray Bradbury also alludes to himself in his book Let's All Kill Constance as the main character, a writer, thinks about writing a book about a "hero who smells of kerosene" and muses about the possibility of books being used to start fires in the future.
Gui Montag, a flamethrower-wielding hero in the real-time strategy game StarCraft, is named after Montag.
Dozens of other references to the novel occur in television, music, and video games.
Printings
In United States:
In Canada:
- First Edition - February 1963
- Seventh Printing - October 1972
References
- ^ Boyle Johnston, Amy E. "Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted", LA Weekly, May 30, 2007.
- ^ Bradbury, Ray. Conversations with Ray Bradbury. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2004: 19. ISBN 978-1-57806-641-4.
- ^ LAWeekly.com (2007), “Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted”, retrieved 2007-06-03
- ^ Quoted by Kingsley Amis in New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (1960).
- ^ SFGate.com (2004), “Author seeks apology from Michael Moore”, retrieved 2006-10-03
- ^ Gyorgy (George) Faludy. John Robert Colombo, ed. Learn by Heart This Poem of Mine: Sixty Poems and One Speech, Hounslow Press, 1983, ISBN 978-0-88882-060-0. Online version hosted by opendemocracy.net
- Tuck, Donald H. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. 1974: 62. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
Further reading
- Bustard, Ned (2004), Fahrenheit 451 Comprehension Guide, Veritas Press.
External links
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- Teacher's Guide at Random House
- Wikibooks Fahrenheit 451 project
- 互联网电影数据库（IMDb）上《Fahrenheit 451》的资料（英文）
- Thesis statements & important quotes from Fahrenheit 451
- SparkNotes Study Guide
- Fahrenheit 451 Literary analysis of the novel
- 列在網路推理小說資料庫中的《Fahrenheit 451》
- weeklywire.com
- Essays on Fahreheit 451 and further more detailed descriptions
- "The Failure of Fahrenheit 451" An essay in Strange Horizons / New York Review of Science Fiction
- "Ray Bradbury's Dystopia" by John J. Miller in the Wall Street Journal
- www.verywellsaid.com/titles/f/fahrenheit-451
- Fahrenheit 451 page on raybradburyonline.com
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