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Full title
Author Ray Bradbury
Type of work Novel
Genre Science fiction
Language English
Time and place written
Date of first publication 1953 (a shorter version entitled “The Fireman” was published in 1951 in
Publisher Ballantine Books
Narrator Third-person, limited omniscient; follows Montag’s point of view, often articulating his interior monologues
Climax Montag’s murder of Beatty
Protagonist Montag
Antagonist Beatty, but also society in general
Setting (time) Sometime in the twenty-fourth century; there have been two atomic wars since 1990
Setting (place) In and around an unspecified city
Point of view Montag’s
Falling action Montag’s trip out of the city into the country
Tense Past, with occasional transitions into present tense during Montag’s interior monologues and stream-of-consciousness passages
Foreshadowing Montag’s uncanny feelings of prescience; early descriptions of the Mechanical Hound; Montag’s nervous glances toward the ventilator shaft where he has hidden his books; discussion of the qualities of fire
Tone Foreboding and menacing, disoriented, poetic, bitterly satirical
Themes Censorship, knowledge versus ignorance
Motifs Paradoxes, animals and nature, religion, television and radio
Symbols Fire, blood, the Electric-Eyed Snake, the hearth, the salamander, the phoenix, the sieve and the sand, Denham’s Dentifrice, the dandelion, mirrors
