For the foreign language learner there exist two important criteria of any didactic editionof comprehensive literary texts. These are, on the one hand, the quality of linguisticannotations and, on the other hand, a careful commentary in order to facilitateunderstanding. The following contribution is based on the assumption that the didacticresources available concerning Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 are insufficient.
The Use of Literary Quotations and Allusionsin: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Table of Contents
1. Introductory Remarks2. CommentaryPart OnePart TwoPart Three3. Notes4. Selected Bibliography
1. Introductory Remarks
Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 was first recommended for foreignlanguage teaching purposes more than twenty years ago (cf. Noçon, 1977,
second edition 1981). In contrast to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale ,there exist several resources which may facilitate the practical work of thelanguage teacher. To begin with, a didactic edition of the novel was published byNorbert Köhn (cf. Stuttgart, 1991, reprinted 1995) and in addition to that, avolume of annotations was produced by Erwin Kastner in the well-known seriesAschendorffs Vokabularien (cf. Münster, 1992). Moreover, Dieter Vater publisheda didactic edition, a Study Guide, accompanied by a teacher's booklet("Lehrerheft") with the help of the Cornelsen publishing house (Berlin, 3rd edition,1988).All three publications contain linguistic annotations, which are more or lesssatisfactory, Kastner's being better than Vater's and the latter being better thanKöhn's. However, as to the commentary of allusions and quotations the quality of the three books under consideration is far from being ideal. On the one hand,one topic of Bradbury's is the prohibition of books, on the other hand, it isastonishing to see how much the text of Fahrenheit 451 abounds in quotationsfrom and allusions to great books from authors of many countries. For thelearners of English as a foreign language these have to be carefully commentedupon, since they are "frequently used as a device to portray the frighteningemptiness of society in Fahrenheit 451(1). None of the commentaries is perfectlysatisfactory: first of all the one to be found in Vater's Study Guide is very scanty,and is considerably inferior to the works by Kastner and Köhn. As far as theallusions to poets, philosophers, men of letters, scientists, etc. are concerned,the commentaries by Kastner and Köhn contain the necessary data for acategorisation of them. As to the quotations from primary sources, however,these two contain - surprisingly enough - not only the same amount of information, but also the same gaps and at least in one case also the samemistake(2). I have tried to fill in the gaps(3)and, in addition to that, to offer some
material which is a help for an understanding of the passages under consideration. Anyone who is interested in the genesis of the novel, which waswritten in just nine days, is advised to read Bradbury's "Burning Bright", i.e. anafterword which was first published in February, 1983(4).
2. Commentary
Motto: Juan Ramón Jiménez
: Spanish poet (1881-1958); the motto sets thetone for unorthodox, non-conformist or even rebellious behaviour in the course of the novel.
PART ONE:p. 5/p. 8: Guy Montag
(page references are to the Cornelsen edition by Dieter Vater; cf. bibliography below): the protagonist's Christian name may refer to GuyFawkes and his famous gun powder plot in order to kill King James I in 1605
("Remember, remember the fifth of November"), whereas his family name seemsto suggest a new beginning. Cf. also the comment on Faber to be found on p. 72below.
Clarisse McClellan
: her Christian name is based on the Latin adjective
clarus
,which means "clearly". It may be understod as a speaking name referring both toher outward appearance and to her character.
p. 9: Millay, Edna St. Vincent
: American writer (1892-1950);
Whitman, Walt
: perhaps the most important American poet of the late 19thcentury (1819-1892); above all, he was influenced by the transcendentalists,particularly by Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wanted to show how man mightachieve for himself the greatest possible freedom within the limits of natural law.
Faulkner, William
: famous novelist and short story writer of the American South(1897-1962) and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.The pattern to destroy the works of these writers directly reflects the McCarthyera, in which socalled Un-American books were burned in order to 'protect' theU.S.A. against Communism. For Bradbury, there exist also some parallels toHitler's torching books in 1934 and to the Salem witch hunts in 1680, duringwhich his "ten-times-great grandmother Mary Bradbury was tried but escaped theburning".(5)
p. 21: The Parlor
: It becomes obvious very quickly that Mildred watches three-dimensional TV programmes all day long; cf. also p. 45, p. 49, p. 70, pp. 74-75,p. 85, p. 91, pp. 98-99, etc. the references to her 'family' and the 'White Clown',which suggest that the members of her family have become substitute figuresand that she suffers from a considerable loss of reality. She is completelypassive, lethargical, addicted to the medium, and somehow her behaviour resembles modern TV viewing of daily soaps and so-called reality TV (shows). Itshould be kept in mind that Bradbury criticised such an abuse of the new mediumwhen it was just becoming a nation-wide institution in the early 1950s.
p. 26 and p. 28: The Hound growled.[...] "This isn't the first time it'sthreatened me"
: these are two examples of foreshadowing, which may beregarded as a literary device in order to produce tension.
p. 27: the Phoenix
: this is the symbol which the Captain of the firemen wears onhis hat, while the firemen themselves have got a phoenix-disc on their chests (cf.p. 7 in the text). There is another allusion to it at the end of the novel (cf.comment on p. 156), where it points to possible resurrection or rebirth.
p. 35: First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin
: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790),statesman and philosopher, is said to be one of the fathers of the AmericanDream and famous for his Autobiography . At the same time he is the founder of America's first fire brigade, which came into being in Boston in 1736.
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F451 Literary Quotes
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