Ray Bradbury Essay, Research Paper

"Ray Bradbury is one of the immortals among us, whose classic works of

science fiction, fantasy and horror will be read a thousand years from now by

our descendents and the relatives alike of the planets of a thousand distant

stars." ( Dragon*con, website). He?s won many awards for his writings and

lectures, and I have no doubt in my mind that his writings will live on forever.

"It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and

changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its

venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands

were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing

and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his

symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame

with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped

up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He

strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove

a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books

died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling

whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning." (Bradbury,

Fahrenheit 451 67). The above is from Fahrenheit 451, a science fiction novel by

Ray Bradbury. The quote describes the main concept of the book and is very

appealing because it gives so much visual detail to the scene. This story is set

in the future where all books and other written materials are 02 out lawed. Guy

Montag?s job is to burn books and the houses which the books are hidden in. He

never questions his actions until he meets an old women who tells him how it was

in the past when people didn’t live in fear and could read whatever they wished.

Eventually he does everything he can to prevent books from being burned and

starts wanting to learn more and more. "I thought that this novel exercised

great social commentary on society as a whole". It shows how important

books are to all. It also shows that some people feel that knowledge is a threat

to power and rule. Reading is a freedom everyone should enjoy. Ray Bradbury is

an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter,

and poet. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. The third son of

Leonard Spaulding Bradbury and Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury. In the fall of 1926

Ray Bradbury’s family moved from Waukegan to Tucson, Arizona, only to return to

Waukegan in May 1927. By 1931 Ray had begun writing his own stories on butcher

paper. In 1932, after his father was laid off from his job as a telephone

lineman, the Bradbury family again moved to Tucson but again returned to

Waukegan the following year. In 1934 the Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles,

California. Bradbury graduated from a Los Angeles High School in 1938. His

formal education ended there, but he furthered it by himself — at night in the

library and by day at his typewriter. (Bradbury, Fahrenheit back of book). He

sold newspapers on Los Angeles street corners from 1938 to 1942. Bradbury’s

first published story was "Hollerbochen’s Dilemma," printed in 1938 in

Imagination!, an amateur fan magazine. In 1939, Bradbury published four issues

of Futuria Fantasia, his own fan magazine, contributing much of the published

material himself. Bradbury’s first paid publication was "Pendulum" in

1941 to Super Science Stories. In 1942 Bradbury wrote "The Lake," the

story in which he discovered his distinctive writing style. ( Dragon*con,

website). By 1943 he had given up his job selling newspapers and began writing

full-time, contributing numerous short stories to periodicals. In 1945 his short

story "The Big Black and White Game" was selected for Best American

Short Stories. In 1947 Bradbury married 03 Marguerite McClure, and that same

year he gathered much of his best material and published them as Dark Carnival,

his first short story collection. His reputation as a leading writer of science

fiction was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950

(published in England under the title The Silver Locusts), which describes the

first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, the constant

thwarting of their efforts by the gentle, telepathic Martians, the eventual

colonization, and finally the effect on the Martian settlers of a massive

nuclear war on Earth. (Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles 45)As much a work of

social criticism as of science fiction, The Martian Chronicles reflects some of

the prevailing anxieties of America in the early atomic age of the 1950’s: the

fear of nuclear war, the longing for a simpler life, reactions against racism

and censorship, and fear of foreign political powers. (Bradbury, The Martian

Chronicles 45) Ray’s fiction comes in both heavy-duty novel-length writings and

the handy, travel-size short-story writing for ease and convenience, and his

work is brilliant in both forms. His novels include The Halloween Tree, Death is

a Lonely Business, Something Wicked This Way Comes (Locus Award, 1987), A

Graveyard for Lunatics, Green Shadows and White Whale. His short-fiction has

been collected or included in nearly uncountable anthologies and collections,

including Dark Carnival, The Silver Locusts, Timeless Stories for Today and

Tomorrow, The Golden Apples of the Sun, The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A

Medicine for Melancholy, The Day It Rained Forever, R Is for Rocket, The Small

Assassin, The Anthem Sprinters and Other Antics, The Machineries of Joy, The

Autumn People, S Is for Space, Tomorrow Midnight, Twice 22, The Vintage

Bradbury, I Sing the Body Electric, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other

Plays, When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed, Pillar of Fire and Other

Plays, Long After Midnight, Beyond 1984: A Remembrance of Things Future, The

Haunted Computer and the Android Pope, The Complete Poems of Ray Bradbury,

Fahrenheit 451, The Stories of Ray Bradbury Volume 2 and The Stories of Ray

Bradbury (Locus Award, 1981). 04 Another of Bradbury’s best-known works, the

novel Fahrenheit 451, was released in 1953 and is set in a future when the

written word is forbidden. Resisting a totalitarian state which burns all the

books, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy.

(Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451). Ray Bradbury’s work has been included in the Best

American Short Story collections (1946, 1948, and 1952). He was awarded the O.

Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award in 1954, the Aviation-Space

Writer’s Association Award for best space article in an American magazine in

1967, the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, and the Grand Master

Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. His animated film about the

history of flight, Icarus Montgolfier Wright, was nominated for an academy

award, and his teleplay of The Halloween Tree won an Emmy. ( Johnston and Jepsen,

website). Bradbury’s stories and novels have been adapted for the screen, both

large and small. The Martian Chronicles (1980 miniseries), Vino iz oduvanchikov

(1996 miniseries), Any Friend of Nicholas Nickleby Is a Friend of Mine (1981

TV), The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), The

Illustrated Man (1969), It Came From Outer Space (1953), It Came From Outer

Space II (1996), King of Kings (1961), Moby Dick (1956), The Murderer (1976),

The Picasso Summer (1969), Quest (1983), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983),

and Trinadtsaty Apostol (1988). ( Dragon*con, website). Ray Bradbury’s writing

has been honored in many ways, but perhaps the most unusual was when an Apollo

astronaut named the Dandelion Crater on the Moon after Bradbury’s novel,

Dandelion Wine. Outside of his literary achievements, Ray Bradbury was the idea

consultant and wrote the basic scenario for the United States Pavilion at the

1964 New York World’s Fair. He conceived the metaphors for Spaceship Earth,

EPCOT, Disney World, and he contributed to the conception of the Orbitron space

ride at Euro-Disney, France. Ray Bradbury is a winner of the Nebula, Prometheus,

O.Henry Memorial, Balrog, Bram Stoker, Benjamin Franklin, Aviation 05 Space

Writers and World Fantasy (Lifetime Achievement) Awards. He has won the Gandalf

Award for Lifetime Contribution to Fantasy (1980). A writer for TV, radio,

theater and film, his credits includeing a script for the film Moby Dick. His

show The Ray Bradbury Theatre is currently showing on the Sci-Fi Channel. Mel

Gibson will star in and direct a new remake of Ray’s classic Fahrenheit 451,

slated for release late in 1999. He was creative consultant for the Jon Jerde

Partnership, the architectural firm that blueprinted the Glendale Galleria, The

Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles, and Horton Plaza in San Diego. Ray Bradbury

currently lives in California and is still actively writing and lecturing. (

Johnston and Jepsen, website).