Ray Bradbury, author of many famous book including Fahrenheit 451, was born August 22nd, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois and died June 5th in Los Angeles, California. Ray Bradbury’s parents were Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, who was a lineman for the Waukegan Bureau of Power and Light, and Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury. Ray Bradbury was an American fantasy and science-fiction writer who used his melancholy stories to talk about the charming and deceiving control of imagination and technology, which he expressed as a theme in his novel Fahrenheit 451 (Paradowski, “Ray Bradbury”).
During his early childhood Ray Bradbury experienced many events which influenced him and made him the writer he wanted to be. During Ray’s childhood a major factor in his development as an artist was his family’s move to Los Angeles. When his family moved to Los Angeles in 1934 Ray became involved in theater and journalism. During that time he wrote 1000 words per day and became part of the Science Fiction League, where he met writers like Henry Kuttner and Leigh Brackett from whom he learned and received inspiration. One of Ray Bradbury’s most impactful events occurred when as a child he saw a magician, Mr. Electrico’s, performance at a show. This performance caused him to form a friendship with Mr. Electrico, who nourished his imagination and creativity. As a result of his friendship and conversations with Mr. Electrico Ray developed the habit of writing for hours, which benefited him in his process. (Paradowski, “Ray Bradbury”).
As Ray grew up he became involved in many different activities in the artistic spectrum, that helped him in his writing career. After he graduated high school in 1938 he wrote for a theater group directed by Loraine Day, and met many authors such like Thomas Wolfe and Ernest Hemingway who had a significant influence in his life (Paradowski, “Ray Bradbury”). During his young adult years Ray planned to join the military, but got rejected due to his poor eyesight, which resulting in him having free time to launch his writing career. In the 1940s he submitted some of his stories to magazines like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories.
127 our experts are availableright now
Even though Ray had written different genres of stories, his main focus was science fiction. During his later years Ray did an interview and asked the question of why does he write science fiction. Ray’s response was that science fiction was the fiction of ideas, and the thought of those ideas filled him with excitement and energy. Ray defined science fiction as an idea that occurs in the head and doesn’t exist yet, and when they come into existence they change everything. Ray Bradbury’s belief that an idea could change the world characterized him. Like he said, “As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of possible, never the impossible. Science fiction is not only the art of the possible, but of the obvious”. Ray’s beliefs in the impact of change appears as a main theme in his work (Weller, “Ray Bradbury: The Art of Fiction No. 203).
