Stylistic devices

Ellipses

Ellipses are found in many places in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. The omission of a clause necessary for correct syntactic construction often occurs in everyday speech . It is the same in the novel, for example, here: " ‘All right if you say so’ >(…) ’That's what the lady said.’" (Part 1, 25%).

The ellipses appear in the text not only in the dialogue. When some books fall over him while he is working, Guy thinks, "How inconvenient!" (Part 1, 49%). And he continues to reflect on how it used to be: "Janitorial work, essentially. Everything to its proper place. Quick with the kerosene!" (ibid.). After Guy kills Beatty, there is silence, and Guy notices with this incomplete sentence, "The blowing of a single autumn leaf." (Part 3, 14%).

In the following example, some verbs are missing: " Complete darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the windows tightly shut, the chamber a tomb-world where no sound from the great city could penetrate." (Part 1, 12%). The correct and complex sentence should be formulated thus: "It was" (complete darkness), (no hint of the silvery outside world) "was to be seen", (the windows) "were" (tightly shut), "the room was" (a tomb into which no sound from the great city penetrated).

Oxymoron

The combination of two contradictory terms, also called an oxymoron, is found several times in the text. At one point, for example, it is described how the trees pour out the "dry rain" (Part 1, 3%). Later, it is described how Guy and Clarisse walked "in the warm-cool blowing night on the silvered pavement " (Part 1, 5%).

Parenthesis

The interruption of a sentence by the insertion of another sentence or phrase occurs in a few places in the text by additions in parentheses that specify the main character’s thoughts. Here are a few examples: 

- Guy listens " to a man's voice (the uncle?)" (Part 1, 22%)

-" The most significant memory he had of Mildred, really, was of a little girl in a forest without trees (how odd!) or rather a little girl lost on a plateau where there used to be trees (you could feel the memory of their shapes all about)..." (Part 1, 62%)

Metaphors

Fahrenheit 451 contains many figurative comparisons (without comparative particles such as “like” or “as”). Some examples of metaphors are named here:

- Guy describes Mildred very poetically as she lies in bed with her eyes open: "Two moonstones looked up at him (...); two pale moonstones, buried in a...