Fahrenheit 451: What techniques does the author use to engage the audience and make the story effective? Give examples to support your analysis (mystery, humor, symbolism, suspense, etc.).

I loved this book. It was one of the most griping stories I have ever read. It had a message, and it told a story that can’t be forgotten. But it wasn’t just the plot of the story that I enjoyed the most. It was the literary techniques that made it the most interesting.

Bradbury used descriptive language, lots of suspense, and irony to make this story engage readers and make it effective.

Bradbury is a very descriptive writer and therefore, his characters are very descriptive when describing things. He uses his talent to make the story more interesting. For example, on page 8 he describes Clarisse, “She had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of the night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darknesses, but moving also toward the sun.” (Bradbury pg. 8) He compares her face to the dial of a clock and gives the reader a better idea of her character.This kind of descriptive language makes the reader think, and it makes the book feel more developed.  He also describes more gruesome things, like the incineration of Beatty on page 113. “There was a hiss like a great mouthful of spittle banging a red-hot stove, a bubbling and frothing as if salt had been poured over a monstrous black snail to cause a terrible liquefaction and a boiling over of yellow foam.” (Bradbury pg. 113) He gets the readers imagination pumping and makes them see this image in their mind. He goes into great detail here to make this act of Montag's more macabre, and longer.

Bradbury also uses suspense to make his story more intense. The majority of this suspense revolves around Guy Montag. The real suspense begins when he steals the book from the house he burned and hides it in his own home.  (Bradbury pg 35) This gets readers really interested because by breaking the law, he's putting his very life in danger.  Suspense starts to escalate when Beatty comes to Montag's house and talks to him, and Montag asks what would happen if a fireman (himself) had a book. (Bradbury pg. 50-60) Then you KNOW that Beatty KNOWS Montag has one! And this makes the stakes higher because Beatty could come and burn Montag’s house down! Then the suspense skyrockets when Montag goes back to work and Beatty starts talking funny to him, saying he’s ‘got him going.’ (Bradbury pg.103)   When the alarm rings and Montag finds himself in front of his own house, readers are on the edge of their seats! (Bradbury pg. 106) And in the moment that Montag attacks Beatty, all the suspense EXPLODES! Bradbury spreads out the suspense throughout the story to keep readers interested and on edge.

A third thing Bradbury uses is irony. There is one major display of irony that Bradbury uses between the antagonist and the protagonist. Towards the middle of the novel Beatty is giving a speech to Montag about why books are burned. He choppily describes it, saying, “Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.”  (Bradbury pg. 57) He goes on about burning the things that cause problems in the society, completely appalling Montag. Later, after Montag kills Beatty (by BURNING him) he thinks, “Beatty, you’re not a problem now. You always said, don’t face a problem, burn it. Well, now I’ve done both. Goodbye Captain.” (Bradbury pg. 115) This blunt statement of Montag's shocks readers.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. Print.