Appreciation of the Ethic of Respect for Nature in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

Abstract

This research paper examines the issue of ethics of respect for nature in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 embedded with the spiritual revitalization of Guy Montag, the protagonist of the novel. It also investigates the triangular relationship among human, nature and civilization. Bradbury reveals his respect for nature by showing the spiritual revitalization in Guy Montag, criticizing the world of commodity and consumerism associated with Mildred Montag and showing the destructive impacts of nuclear war upon human and nonhuman organism. Bradbury exposes his ethics of respect for nature in order to provide the ecological consciousness to the American individualistic and materialistic people that nature is a system of mutual adaptation and interdependence where we can retain the respect for human if we have the respect for nature. Deploying the theoretical insights related to ethics of nature put forwarded by Paul W. Tylor and Aldo Leopold, the study reveals that human being should avoid the moral and intellectual sterility and know his or her place in the natural world by connecting himself or herself with the stability, integrity and beauty of the bio-tic community