Fahrenheit 451: Irony Part 2

Another ironic situation in Fahrenheit 451 is that when the firemen arrived at Guy Montag’s house after receiving several calls that he had books, Montag was there with his uniform on, which had the salamander on his arm and a phoenix disc on his chest.  The salamander had represented how the firemen were unharmed by fire.  Now he would get “burned”.  The phoenix used to represent how the firemen could live through fire.  Now, it seems to represent how due to the fire aimed at his life, he “died”, (stopped being a firefighter) and was reborn (siding with the rebels). 

            The next irony in this story is that Clarisse McClellan died by getting hit by a car.  This is ironic because Clarisse was always thought that cars were going too fast and she greatly enjoys walking.  One quote that she makes is, “Isn't this a nice time of night to walk? I like to smell things and look at things, and sometimes stay up all night, walking, and watch the sun rise." (Bradbury 3)  She also says to Montag, “"I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly," she said. "If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur? That's a rose-garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days. Isn't that funny, and sad, too?" (Bradbury 3)  Finally, another quote that Clarisse makes, almost foreshadowing her death is, “I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other…Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks.” (Bradbury 14)

            It is also ironic that Montag almost got hit by a car while trying to cross a ten lane long road (Bradbury 56).  This is ironic because Clarisse had got hit by a car.  Clarisse and Montag used to talk together and it was almost as if part of her spirit went in him.  One day, Clarisse was catching raindrops in her mouth and Montag thought that she was acting strange (Bradbury 9).  Yet, when she left, he tried to catch raindrops too (Bradbury 11).

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. Print.