If We Had Been Taller

Students will be required to complete an essay in which they explain how the author’s life experiences and the literary period in which they wrote affected their style and purpose using the works the student identifies as evidence.

Ray Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920, in Waukegan Illinois and he died July 5, 2012, in Los Angeles CA. His most popular novel is Fahrenheit 451. Ray was originally a lineman, but he was very familiar with technological advancements. From childhood, he was a huge fan of magicians and a voracious reader.

He became a writer at 13. Then he moved to Los Angeles in 1934. He could not afford college so he went to the library three days a week for ten years. To support himself he wrote stories he published his first short story in a fan magazine in 1938.

Literary Period

Ray Bradbury wrote in the post-modern literary movement. Postmodern literature is described by the use of reliance on narrative techniques such as fragmentation, paradox, and the unreliable narrator.

It is sometimes defined as a trend that emerged in the post–World War II era. Some other prolific writers that wrote in the postmodern era were Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut is a poster child for postmodernism. One of the big names of the 1960s and ’70s, he is remembered as a major voice of counterculture.

This period ( and every period) was heavily influenced by current events. History/current events often influence how writers write. The connection is that History, current events, and social events have influenced American Literature.

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Authors, their literary works, and their specific writing styles are affected and influenced by the world around them. Authors have used experiences they have lived through and/or taken out of history to help shape and express in their works. Writing styles are also affected by the current trends and opinions of the period they represent. For example, Fahrenheit 451 was written in 1953 some event that influenced that era was The McCarthy period was, this was when U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s was described by heightened political repression as well as an alleged campaign spreading fear of Communist influence on American. The arms race / Hiroshima, During the final stage of World War II, the United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. The United States dropped the bombs after being allowed to by the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement. The arms race The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies during the Cold War. All these events had a major effect on Ray and other authors who wrote novels.

Purpose and Style

Fahrenheit 451 is a paradoxical novel in which firemen burn books and the government limits knowledge. Ray graduated high school during the depression and spent a lot of time in the library because he could not afford college. Origin of the book when he was growing up radio was a big thing and he loved the library and he felt that it was being neglected, he also saw the begging of TVs. Also being a lineman he got to see firsthand how TV was growing. In the era that Ray wrote the book the world was undergoing a controversial time, Nazi book burnings and the Mccarthy scare. A lot of Ray’s relatives were Firemen and his uncle was a fireman man that died. This influenced the firemen men in the book. When Ray was little he thought one day everything is going to be fireproof, what are firemen going to do? So he decided to flip their role and burn books. Ray’s main purpose was to help libraries to survive,(also because of the threat of extermination with so many different factors) he thinks they are more important than universities knowledge should be free. He believes this because he could not attend a university. The book primarily speaks to the horrors of democracy the ironic nature that firemen burned books and the nature that paper burns at 451 degrees and it was way. During the writing process, Ray assigned Montag the name of a paper company and the Fabel maker of pencils. This is an example of the attention to detail that Ray took when writing his book.

And that was Ray Bradbury’s inspiration for Fahrenheit 451. Also during a radio interview, Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 because of his concerns at the time (during the McCarthy era) about the threat of book burning in the United States. The McCarthy period was The term refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting from the late 1940s through the 1950s and characterized by heightened political repression as well as an alleged campaign spreading fear of Communist influence on American.