A critical analysis of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Most often, people can be seen walking with their heads down, immersed in the technology in front of them, ignoring the whole world. Societies often contain a lot of technology, allowing people to use it in helpful or hurtful ways. Some technology can be lifesaving, but there is also technology that can destroy life in less than a second. Most often, people seem to not understand what technology is doing and how it is impacting their lives. Instead, they are blinded by the few positives of technology that actually hurt the society more than they can recognize. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the society is heavily dependent on technology. Technology has a negative impact on the characters in Fahrenheit 451. People in the society become addicted to the parlor walls, cars go so fast that they don’t see anything outside and the mechanical hound instills fear in people.

Technology is a really big thing that Bradbury criticized in Fahrenheit 451. He did not believe that technology would be very helpful in this society. He talked about how there were parlors that had walls of television. People were so addicted to television that people referred to to television characters as their “family” and that made them very anti-social. Another thing technology ruined in the book was books. The

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury, published in 1953. The novel describes a futuristic society in which books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The protagonist is a fireman named Montag who becomes perturbed with his role in censorship and destruction of knowledge, eventually quitting his job and joining a resistance movement that memorizes and shares the world's greatest literary works. As Montag struggles over the value of knowledge, he becomes a skeptical, rebellious and dynamic person, driving him to the fringes of society in pursuit of an absolute truth.

The average person in our society spends 7-8 hours a day(The Washington Post) using technology; that is stuff like television, video games, surfing the web, etc. Let that set in; that’s a long time. Our society procrastinates also is constantly distracted by technology like no other. We are practically glued to technology; before we become slaves of technology we must change that. The theme of technology in Fahrenheit 451 informs us that the overuse of technology makes people lazy/procrastinate, that technology will overpower people’s lives, and technology takes away from people’s education.

Montag is someone who is shy and keeps his thoughts to himself, but thinks many things. He shows that he is distracted instead of being happy throughout the book. At the time, he was walking home from work and was looking at Clarisse. Clarisse is a girl who would roam the streets and was also Montag's neighbor. She walks over to Guy and they start to have a conversation while walking to their houses. They discussing if talking about to see if Montag is really happy or if he was lying. She keeps questioning him. Bradbury explains “He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as true state affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run across the lawn with the mask and the way

​In a world where everything surrounding one is so different and so similar in the exact same time… Imagine a society where everything an individual can mentally and physically do is under the power of the government. Self-difference does not exist. In a futuristic setting of the novel ‘Fahrenheit 451’ written by Ray Bradbury, and the short story ‘Harrison Bergeron’ written by Kurt Vonnegut are both two very eventful and interesting readings that will keep one’s mind running on about the outlook on futuristic life and the governments strict needs and wants throughout a society. These two stories can be compared and contrasted by the strict outlook on the governments control, demand and want over a society, the close relation the two main characters from both stories portray and the similar theme demonstrating loss of individuality.

This study examines the issue of freedom of information in the story of literary oppression found in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury presents the oppression of an authoritarian state that does not allow its citizens to reads books. Guy Montag is initially a servant of the state that requires him to locate and persecute members of the community that still collect books. In various cases, Bradbury defines the rights of certain citizens to rebel against Guy and the other “book burners”, which suggest liberation from tyranny and the freedom of information. Guy also becomes convenient that the policy to destroy books is a threat to civilization, and the rebellion allows him to change his views and to rebel against the government. More importantly, Clarisse’s role in inspiring Guy to revolt becomes a major catalyst for freeing the society from banning books that are deemed a threat to the social order. In essence, an analysis of freedom of information will be examined in this study of literary oppression found in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

Visual media, such as the computer and television distract people from the natural world, and instead blinds them from reality. Fahrenheit 451 exposes the idea that mass visual media initiates problems of violence, unawareness, and ignorance. The advanced technology causes the people of society to stray farther away from reality, and they become trapped in their own world of unawareness. Thus, unlike in nature where everything is free, the advanced technology confines people within the boundaries that technology allows. The boundaries created by visual media imprison the people of society into a world of mental incapacity and illiteracy. This unfamiliarity with the world, shown by numerous characters, shows how society is negligent. For

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a display of how humans are relying more and more on technology for entertainment at the price of their ability for intellectual development. It is a novel about technological dystopia, often compared to other novels such as, George Orwell’s 1984 and Asimov Ender’s Game. Although today’s technology has not quite caught up with Bradbury’s expectations, the threat of having his vision of a dystrophic society is very realistic. He sees a futuristic society in which this submission of thought is highly valued. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury displays a futuristic utopian society where "the people did not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations" (Mogen, Pg. 111).

Today, teens are spending one third of their day using technology according to a new study released by Common Sense Media. That is a whole nine hours spent mindlessly surfing the web or watching cat videos. In the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes a social commentary on what the future may look like if technology continues to be overused. In his dystopia, all books are banned and the government controls almost every aspect of people’s lives by brainwashing them with technology. Firemen burn down people’s houses who have books, Guy Montag being one of them. Slowly, Montag starts to question his society and steal books, to the dismay of his technology obsessed wife, Mildred. Bradbury uses Mildred as a symbol of societal corruption to highlight the dangers of excessively using technology.

Today’s society revolves around technology and we are constantly making advances in the field. With everyone singing technology’s praises, it's easy to skip over its faults. Ray Bradbury helps bring some of those to light in his book Fahrenheit 451. Many disadvantages of technology are exhibited in the story as the main character, Guy Montag, fights his was out of the cage that is Bradbury’s futuristic society. In this fictitious world, advanced technology has led to unsafe conditions, the creation of the ominous Mechanical Hound that has Montag on the run, and anti-socialness. Bradbury uses this book as a means of influencing society by showing readers the bad side of technology.

One of the main reasons that Bradbury write Fahrenheit 451 was because so many people are paying too much attention to television that they don’t have times to read books. That is the main reason that Bradbury’s writes about how fast technology would grow and that idea has actually come true. Everyone always wants the fastest and best internet or the best cellphone and in his story he writes about the same thing. Such as when Mildred asked “When can we get the fourth wall television put in.” even though they

Throughout the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the author, Ray Bradbury, displays an abundance of trends which he believes will reflect accurately on society today. From the beginning to the end of this novel, there seems to be a lot of negative trends discussed about society. Although these vary, all of them are predictions for the future and how these types of concerns will be a big problem. Many of the trends are present today but there are a few which aren’t seen in current society. However, most of these are accurate and these include, the use and abuse of technology, the destruction of knowledge, and suicides.

It was a time of book-burning and close panic, which left Bradbury in disbelief that "[we] would go all out and destroy ourselves in this fashion'; (Moore 103). The writing of this novel was also an opportunity for Bradbury to speak out against the censorship of written literature that was taking place by showing the consequences of it. Bradbury believed that the censorship of books destroyed important ideas, knowledge, and opinions and restricted the world from learning about the problems of their culture. His writing came to show that without such knowledge, society could become very passive, which would make it vulnerable to the control and mind manipulating techniques of the government. Ironically enough, this book itself was subject to censorship on its initial release (Touponce 125). These political, social, and military tensions of the 50's lent to Bradbury's own tensions, calling him forth to alert the people of their own self-destructive behaviors.

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction novel about a futuristic community that has lost the ability to socially interact with one another. Guy Montag is the average citizen. His profession is a fireman, except in this society firemen don’t prevent fires, they start them. His job, like many other firemen, is to illuminate books by burning them because books are illegal. Over the course of Fahrenheit 451, Montag realizes society and its faults. Bradbury uses Montag to depict technology and censorship as examples of warning signs, and how that society could one day become ours.