Leanne Sutton
COMM 108
April 4, 2007
Prose Fiction Intent Paper
I read Fahrenheit 451 in high school, and did not want to put it down. It is an intriguing, invigorating book written by Ray Bradbury about a futuristic time in American society where books are not read, but burned. Books are seen as mindless tools used by people to think, to contemplate, to understand the world, tools that could harm the totalitarian-like ideals built into this society. The government in this society wants to control the minds and actions of the people so that there would not be individuals, but a clan of drones. Because books are seen as vile, and all buildings are fireproofed, firemen now, rather than putting out fires, set fires with kerosene to any outlawed book they find. I chose it because I thought it was appropriate for the class of literature-readers to consider a world without books. We are already such a visual society, letting television, movies, and video games take the place of many books, but we still have the freedom of the press, and the freedom to read. The people in this book are even stripped of that intimacy found in reading a good book. I chose this particular section of this story to show lots of action, lots of showing, and to accentuate the defining moment in the main character that sparked his interest in books, leading to the demise of some (Beatty, other firemen, and the mechanical hound), and freedom of others (Faber and himself). To dive into the detail of this literature, I will present my dramatistic and modal analyzation of the text in this paper.
Primarily, I would like to establish why this selection is good literature. Not only is this book a good read, but it has universality, individuality, and suggestion. It has universality in its themes of law, war, love (or lack-there-of), literature, hate, death, and freedom, among many more. It shows its individuality through its highly figurative and metaphoric language, the short, punctual sentences and phrases in quick repetition, and the idea of firemen starting fires instead of putting them out. Finally, it has the quality of suggestion through the awkward feel of the many questions of Clarisse McClellan that would be normal to the reader, but confuse the mind of Guy Montag. It also leaves the reader to their own thoughts on what is right and wrong, moral and immoral, ethical and unethical from the standpoint of the government and the citizen. It makes us question if what Montag is doing is warranted, or should be avoided at all costs. It leaves us to make our own decisions, and mixes our thoughts with the double-sided view and illustrative language both condoning and condemning the flame that so influenced Montag's life.
This story is told in third-person omniscient narration. The narrator in this story is not a character directly involved in the story, and can see all of the characters, their thoughts, and intentions. For example, after Montag's wife Mildred gets her stomach and blood pumped the narrator notes outside of quotation marks, “There are too many of us, he thought .” Because the narrator is no defined character, I had to analyze clues in the text to imagine them, as well as make some probabilities and possibilities for qualities of the narrator.
WHO IS SPEAKING?
I read the narrator to be an educated man in his late thirties, but much younger at heart. A storyteller. I picture the narrator as one of the traveling hobos mentioned at the end of the story, telling the story of what changed the famous-chase fireman, Guy Montag, into one of them. I believe him to be educated because of his language and grammar used. He is very descriptive, and though he does not use many very large words, his grammar is good and his speech not slurred. He has had enough life experience to learn not to be overly-biased, or at least not to show it much in telling this story. He has a favor towards Montag's cause of rebellion and actions to get there, but respects the acts and decisions of everyone, shown by his expression of the good and bad moments of Montag, like his serene float down river and thoughts, along with his slapping and shaking of his wife at the sight of books in their home.
The narrator likes and admires Guy Montag by emphasizing on the good brought about by his harmful actions in his rebellion. He sees him as a revolutionary, almost a hero. That's why he tells stories about him. He despises Captain Beatty, shown through the negative connotations used to describe Beatty and his manipulative manner. He dislikes Mildred Montag, Guy Montag's wife. He explains how she is absorbed in herself, the parlor “family”, and seashell radio. She constantly needs to be entertained, and can't keep track of anything but her television program times (shown through her lack of recollection for how many pills she took and how long they've had their parlor wall televisions). He sees her as immature. He admires Clarisse McClellan for inspiring Montag to think, watch, and listen. This shows in the gentle description of her physical characteristics and the joyous child-like, yet mature quality she would speak and act with (like rubbing daffodils under her chin, looking at the stars, and taking walks to enjoy nature). He had a respect for Faber, but acknowledged his cowardice by mentioning it a few times during presentation of the green bullet. For the scene I've chosen, he admires the braveness of the woman willing to burn with her books, as he does not make her sound crazy, but bold.
The entire book is in past tense from the narrator's perspective. I think the narrator learned the story of Montag possibly years after his departure from the city, and is passing it on as the story of a man that made history. I don't believe the narrator, as far as interpretation for my performance is concerned, was knowledgeable of the events of Montag's life when they happened. The narrator's attitude about the characters changes as the characters change in decision, path, and mindset. For example, he likes Montag more as Montag opens his mind to books, and he likes Beatty less as he becomes more manipulative and argumentative.
TO WHOM IS THE NARRATOR SPEAKING? :
The vocabulary in this text is not very technical or complicated, nor is it very childish, so I would not expect it to be implied to professionals or children. It also has some fast-paced, rapid thoughts that could be hard to catch, so I do not think it was intended for elderly people. Cuss words are used in intense moments, so I don't think that it was meant for people of any particular religious faith. I imagine the audience to be bright individuals in their late teens or young adults that are like-minded to the narrator (such as Clarisse), but may not have had the expansive experiences that the narrator or Montag may have had. They are joining the pack of traveling hobos, as the book calls them, and I imagine them as young apprentice-types that will be carrying on the stories and passing along books from memory just as those they learn from are. They are attentive listeners and learners.
WHAT IS THE NARRATOR SPEAKING ABOUT?
The narrator is telling the story of Guy Montag's journey to psychological liberation. He explores the theme of cleansing: fire used to “cleanse” society of thought and imagination, and river water used to cleanse Montag of his crime, washing away his old life and birthing him new into the country land. He is speaking about how the passion and imagination of one man can conquer the oppression secretly forced upon many. Montag has associative moments, like when he says “I don't know anything anymore” and realizes how his current situation is like his childhood problem of trying to fill a sieve with sand, though it never filled. It has a causal plot, in which one event leads to another.
WHERE IS THE NARRATOR?
The narrator is in the Northern East part of the United States. He is probably along the trail of the abandoned rail road tracks out in the country. I think that the narrator was at some far out area of the countryside with other hobos. The narrator himself is mostly in the epic mode, but often goes into dramatic mode when describing and showing something a character does.
WHEN IS THE NARRATOR TELLING THE STORY?
In the future, sometime after 2022, after the US had survived two atomic bombs. The narrator is telling the story second-hand, never having met Montag in person. So, I think that the narrator is telling the story in Montag's old age, or years after his death. The narrator's manipulation of time through scene in my selection is shown when it says, “the engine slammed to a stop”, and “the men walked clumsily to the door”. Summary is shown in sections like, “He seized it off the wall behind him, ran, leapt, and they were off”, and “the police went first and adhesive-taped the victim's mouth and bandaged him off”. Description is shown in Montag's focus on the book in his hands, and watching how it moves.
HOW IS THE NARRATOR TELLING THE STORY?
There is an unusual mood to the beginning of the scene, where it seems as though Montag is unresponsive to the fire alarm. When telling the audience about the mistreatments of the old woman, the mood gets tense and angry. The mood lightens for a moment as if a fresh breath of air filled Montag's nose as he temporarily held the book open and read one line of it. The mood gets very tense and suspenseful when the woman reveals the sole kitchen match in her hand. The mood gets dismal when the woman allows herself to burn, and Montag thinks silently on the ride home. Moments within the characters' thoughts shows the intimate relationship, while most of the text has a consultative tone to it.
WHY IS THE NARRATOR TELLING THE STORY?
I think that there are many reasons the narrator is telling this story. One is to simply inform a newer generation of thinkers about the transformation of one man and how it affected society. Another is to remind them of how the society was before the war, in hopes of learning from it and never going back to it. Another is just for pure entertainment, just as we hear stories of past heroes and people of renown. Also, the narrator is probably trying to inspire people to break out of the loop like Montag did, sort of an encouragement system. I think the narrator has a bit of all of these reasons for telling the story, and I hope it reflects in my performance.
MODAL ANALYSIS :
The speaker mode for this book is epic, for the narrator is an undefined persona, and defined characters throughout the book speak as well. There is an epic audience mode relationship with the narrator, and a dramatic mode between the characters in the scene. One epic moment is when the narrator describes the scene where “The woman knelt among the books, touching the drenched leather and cardboard, reading the gilt titles with her fingers while her eyes accused Montag.” An example of a dramatic moment in this section is where the old woman said, “You can't ever have my books,” followed by Beatty responding, “You know the law. Where's your common sense?” A few lyric modes exist in my section of selection, such as “How inconvenient! (Montag thought to himself)” and “God, thought Montag, how true! Always at night the alarm comes… Is it because fire is prettier by night?” I recognized that the narrator is not Ray Bradbury himself, but a created speaker who has the experiences of how it is living in that day and age. This allows the narrator to have more of a justified bias or opinion in presenting this work because he's experienced these things, at least through my own analysis. This helps keep me in the story realms of the text, and helps me understand the reading better, helping my analysis to be clearer.
The dramatistic and modal analysis of this piece made me better understand who the narrator is, his attitudes toward situations and characters, and why he is telling the story. This will help me to perform him better. I chose to focus on the performance analogue of how I am going to present the narrator's voice because I had to get the right feel of an educated storyteller conforming his speech for the understanding of those possibly less-learned or experienced than he. He must tell the story in an interesting way, but still get across his message, including his attitudes. He must also be particular about his details so that they will stay in the minds of the listeners for them to carry on.
Movement and staging will be used to walk upstairs, to show Montag “staggering after them in the kerosene fumes”, and backing out of the door slowly when she reveals the match. Focus will be used to show height, like when they are upstairs shoveling books over the railing, and when the woman kneels down. I will keep the script in the book itself, because a binder wound take up space for my arm to gesture. I will simply hold the small book in my hand. The pace will be fairly quick, as the firemen are eager to find the books and burn them, but I will take a moment to slow the pace when Montag has the encounter with the book “lit… like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering.”
The major transition of this section is where the woman reveals the kitchen match. The tone and mood immediately changes to a more serious, solemn one. On their ride home, the “boys” went from “making too much noise, laughing, [and] joking” to “they said nothing on their way back to the firehouse. Nobody looked at anyone else. The line I end with comes from a section where Montag is speaking with his wife about the event, but I decided to make it a lyric moment to get the point of Montag's initial curiosity within the time constraints.
Reading is not my strongest feature, or, in other words, I don't read much. I have read this book in the past, and fairly understood the concepts, so I knew how awful it would be to live in a society where books were banned. But that was it. I knew . I had only the knowledge and assumption of it. When I picked this book back up to read again to prepare for this performance, I began to understand how terrible it would be to ban all books. I realized this because as I was reading I had a hard time putting the book down. I was captivated by the words that created images in my head. I used to read a lot, but started to dislike it when I was forced to read, not to my own enjoyment. Reading this book again from cover to cover helped re-spark the “flame” in me for reading that had died out a while ago. I now am looking forward to reading more. I am glad that I chose this piece to read, because I can now better understand the concepts I didn't catch long ago. I never want to live in a society where books are illegal, for it would strip away the very essence of imagination, of thought, of individuality and exploration. One would find it difficult to learn from history, from themselves, and about themselves.