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Similes In Part 3 Of Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Decent Essays

Fahrenheit 451 has been called an ingenious and life changing work of literature. It could not have had this effect on people, however, without the incredibly pivotal part 3 of the novel. This part is what shows the inherent hopeful nature of the writing. Ray Bradbury’s intent when writing Part 3 of Fahrenheit 451 was to show how even a dark and dystopian world like the one in the novel can be reborn into a new and better society, and that even the most hopeless of situations can be fixed. He demonstrates this intent through an analogy about the seasons, similes involving wax dolls, and finally the overarching metaphor of the phoenix. Bradbury is able to show the ability of societies to be reborn through an extended simile about seasons. As Montag is running away from the police directly after killing Beatty, he writes that there were “helicopters falling falling like the first flakes of snow in the long winter to come” (Bradbury 123). This quote is one of a few that describe the seasons of the year, and in particular, this one is able to encompass what Bradbury was trying to say about them. Before this moment, all other similes describing seasons, including one about the mechanical hound and one about the police helicopters that appeared earlier, had featured autumn. This is a pivotal moment, because it shows that the “seasons” are continuing to progress. Before Montag’s rebellion and escape, society was locked into a constant “autumn,” where the quality of life and

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