Cliffs Notes on Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

by Samuel J. Umland

-- Offers a traditional CliffNotes "TM" treatment of a literary novel, with updated and new content.
-- Includes Life and Background of the Author, Introduction to the Novel, A Brief Synopsis, List of Characters, Critical Commentaries, Glossaries, Character Analyses, and Critical Essays.
-- Enhanced by collaboration with Webster's New World "TM" College Dictionary, which provides authoritative glossary definitions.
-- Provides a Character Map, a one-page spread that graphically illustrates the relationships between characters.
-- Supplemented by CliffNotes "TM" Review, which reinforces learning with fun and practical activities, and CliffNotes "TM" Resource Center, which provides the reader with additional resources for further study.
-- Contains reader-friendly icons for theme, literary device, style & language, and character insight.
-- Includes a comprehensive Index.

62 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1994

Reviews

[Victoria Moore]

Reading a classic, like "Fahrenheit 451", without reading its accompanying Cliffs Notes is like trying to take a test in school without studying a text book and course notes. In doing so I feel as if I've set myself up for failure without really trying. To prevent this I always read both together despite the extra work and time involved. This time when I read the one for "Fahrenheit 451" I was surprised to learn how much censorship, relationships and individuality impacted the major points of the novel. I was also pleased to learn that Bradbury wasn't just a science fiction writer, as I'd previously believed, but a fantasist who really cared about the society he lived in and was representing.
The most interesting part of this version of Cliffs Notes to me was the comparison between the book and the film, which I've always been a fan of. As visually striking, in print, as on screen, the futuristic genre it represents gave me a chance to immerse myself in a world that somewhat resembles our own.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once again, counting Cliff Notes as a book. Well, if I'm allowed, I shall. I find reading Cliff Notes of classics satisfying. In college, it seemed like too much work to study Cliff Notes. What a limiting point of view. Of course, now my choices are made under less duress.

This set tended to help verify what I discovered as I read. The most interesting point to me was the driving home the realization that Beatty was in fact wanting to commit suicide by berating Montag, influencing Montag to set Beatty on fire. "Beatty was a man who understood his own compromised morality and who quietly admired the conviction of people like Montag."

I would argue that Umland is inaccurate when he writes that Millie "...carries her own seeds of destruction. She could choose books and life but chooses to close her mind to the truth in books." I would say the seeds were purposefully sewn by her society's government. Perhaps, if given time, Millie would be able to rise above her fear and misery to join the men on the fringe, to choose life. Trouble is, Umland is in line with Bradbury so I my viewpoint must be inaccurate. Someone has to support Millie. It might as well be me.

Umland also mistakenly attributes the idea to plant books in firemens' homes to Montag. It is Faber who has this idea, and says it's a joke (because he is afraid?), when it is taken seriously by Montag. Montag encourages, validates, and makes it partially manifest.