Fahrenheit 451- Style

Maybe this is a little strange of me spend time thinking about, but I always love thinking about the different styles authors use. For instance, some authors use a lot of similes and adjectives, enough that if their style was to be made a picture it would have all sorts of tiny details crowding into every square inch. There would be vibrant colors and fast moving lines. The author of Fahrenheit 451 has that kind of style.

Bradbury uses a lot of metaphors in his writing. If I am to be honest, the numerous metaphors had me a little confused at times. When Montag is about to read a poem to his wife’s friends, it says “he was all fire,” and “they sat in the middle of an empty dessert (Bradbury 99).” Both of those are in just one sentence. When Montag is thinking back about the machine that pumped out Millie’s stomach, he thinks of it as “a hungry snake (Bradbury 44).” Clarisse’s face is “fragile milk crystal with a soft and constant light in it (Bradbury 7)” The metaphors he uses make the style seem much more dramatic because it puts such a definite image in the reader’s mind.

Bradbury uses a whole lot of adjectives too. For some reason, I really like the way he describes Clarisse after the first time Montag meets her. “It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered. (Bradbury 5).” It almost sounds magical to me. Anyway, my point is that he uses a lot of really good adjectives. When he reads the poetry to Millie’s friends, Bradbury says “Then he began to read in a low, stumbling voice that grew firmer as he progressed from line to line, and his voice went out across the desert, into the whiteness, and around the three sitting women there in the great hot emptiness (Bradbury 99).” That gives such a clear feeling of what the atmosphere in the room was like. I very much like his style of writing.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1996. Print.