Themes, Symbols, and Motifs Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 has many symbols, themes, and motifs.


Theme: A theme is a main idea or message a story is making.
Motif: A motif is a recurring image, word, phrase, or action that tends to create unity within a literary work.
Symbol: A symbol is a practice of representing things by symbols, or attributing symbolic meanings to objects, events, relationships, etc.

This, among many other things, makes Fahrenheit 451 a great literature book. Below you'll find an example of a motif, a theme, and a symbol, the three of them taken from the book, analyzed using the Big 5.


Theme: Ignorance and Knowledge

The main characters, Montag, Beatty, and Faber, are struggling around the tension between Ignorance and Knowledge. Since Montag is a fireman, his job is to destroy the main source of knowledge, books, but after his encounters with Faber and Clarisse, and the incident with the old woman, he started questioning the ideas of his society.

A .

B.

C.

Big 5 (Image C.):

• Audience /Purpose: It targets every kind of public. Because this image refers to the road of life, in which we have to choose to go through the ignorance road, or the knowledge road, and since everyone is going through the road of life, everyone can apply the concepts of the picture. 
• Content /Theme: The image contains a sign we ussually see on the streets suggesting there are two roads ahead, and there's only one that will take us where we want to get. This image is a metaphor about life, because when we face a difficult decision, like choosing between knowledge and ignorance, there's only one road that will take us where we want to get. 
• Tone /Mood: This image makes me feel like I have to make the right choice between Ignorance and Knowledge, and that I have to think about who I want to be in the future in order to make the right choice. 
• Stylistic Devices: In this image the creator is using a metaphor to express the idea he wants the audience to get, a metaphor that compares choosing between Ignorance and Knowledge to a road with two paths. 
• Structure: The sign in the image is made mainly of metal. There is a high contrast in terms of colors  between the green on the sign and the blue from the sky. There is also a contrast between the toughness of the metal sign and the softness of the sky.  

Motif: Religion

Through the hole novel Bradbury uses many religious references, Mildred's friends, which remind Montag of some icons he saw in church and didn't understand, Faber reminds Montag to demonstrate pity rather than fury, which is related to the value of forgiveness, the book also makes reference to the miracle of Jesus at Canaa, when Montag and Faber describe themselves as fire and water respectively, and when the two of them merge wine will be produced, and the fact that at the end of the novel the author resolves it by using language from the Bible, among others.

A.

B.

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Big 5 (Image C.):                                                        

• Audience /Purpose: This image targets mainly people who belong to the christian religion, it's purpose is to show that this religion is in our hands, and by the sparkly background of the cross, the image wants to show how the christian religion is light. 
• Content /Theme: The image contains two hands holding a levitating cross which has light coming out of it. There is a high contrast of colors, and this contrast helps stand out the cross, since it's the most important part of the picture. 
• Tone /Mood: This image makes me feel peaceful, because of al the light the image contains, and the calmness of the situation described in the picture.
• Stylistic Devices: The creator of the image uses personification in this picture to describe the situation, because in the image the cross looks like it has life of it's own, by this the creator wants to express the fact that the christian religion has life of it's own. Plus, by the fact that the cross is floating, the creator wants to show that even though religion is in out hands, it still can hold on itself since it has life of it's own.  
• Structure: The cross looks like it's made of wood and the hands are made of human flesh. There is a high color contrast in this picture since the background is white and the other colors of the picture are dark and intense. This high contrast mainly focuses on making the cross more attractive to the eye, mainly because of the light rays coming out of it. 

Symbol: The Phoenix

Granger compares society to a phoenix (after the bombing of the city) by describing it as something that burns up and then rises again fom the ashes in an infinite cycle, which is the main characteristic of the phoenix. The phoenix symbol may also refer to the fact that since the government doesn't want to remember the past, the mistakes made in it may be repeated, as the phoenix repeats it's burning  to rise again, because of this is that Granger and his group give themselves the task of remembering the mistakes of the past so that they may prevent them from happening again.

Big 5:

• Audience /Purpose: This image targets people interested in fire and ancient mythology. The purpose of this image is to show the greatness and beauty of the phoenix, and show and approximate image of how it would look like if it was real.  
• Content /Theme: This image contains a bird (Phoenix) emerging from a fire, the colors of the hole picture consist on different tones of red and orange. It shows the exact moment when the phoenix rises from theashes after being burnt by fire. 
• Tone /Mood: This image makes me feel powerful, because it shows all the power of the phoenix, it's strength, and it shows fire which also represents mightiness. 
• Stylistic Devices:In fahrenheit 451 the Phoenix represents a metaphor, because it stands for  the society that burns itself up and then rises again from the ashes, and history that many times repeats itself. In brief, the Phoenix represents an infinite cycle. 
• Structure: The Phoenix is a living organism made of flesh, the image also contains fire. There is little contrast in terms of colors since the picture mainly contains tones of red and orange. However we can find contrast in the upper part of the image, where the background of the Phoenix's head is black, while the head itself is red and orange.