Fahrenheit 451 is currently Bradbury's most famous written work of social criticism. It deals with serious problems of control of the masses by the media, the banning of books, and the suppression of the mind (with censorship). The novel examines a few pivotal days of a man's life, a man who is a burner of books and, therefore, an instrument of suppression. This man (Montag) lives in a world where the past has been destroyed by kerosene-spewing hoses and government brainwashing methods. In a few short days, this man is transformed from a narrow-minded and prejudiced conformist into a dynamic individual committed to social change and to a life of saving books rather than destroying them.
Before you begin the novel, note the significance of the title, 451 degrees Fahrenheit, "the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and burns." Also note the epigram by Juan Ramon Jimenez: "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." Jimenez (1881–1958) was a Spanish poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1956 and was largely responsible for introducing Modernism into Spanish poetry. The implications of both concepts — one, a simple fact, and the other, a challenge to authority — gain immense significance by the conclusion of the book.
