Devolution and Survival in The Remember and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In today’s society people, in an attempt to ignore their problems, focus on unimportant dilemmas or indulge themselves with alcohol or drugs to “forget” their troubles. As similar in both societies of the dystopian novel, Brave New World and of the allegorical novel, Lord of the Flies, the authors, Aldous Huxley and William Golding demonstrate how different distractions, such as a change of focus or a temporary fix, can consume people and can make their initial problems even worse.

Finally, in Fahrenheit 451, it is revealed in the story that we shouldn't let technology take over our lives because we will start to forget how to do things. For example, researching. Back in the day, we used to do this all by book, now we have this magical thing called the Internet. Technology has a major affect on us that it even makes people lazy, even me. All in all, fiction can reveal a lot about our lives or our

“For what it's worth: it's never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.” ― Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.” (Bradbury pg.104) In Fahrenheit 451 and The Pedestrian, the main characters witnessed the rarity of social interaction and how inclined people are to their screens. Author Ray Bradbury describes how it has gotten to the point where people are more in touch with technology rather than each other. Through foreshadowing and flashback, Ray Bradbury’s short story, The Pedestrian, and his novel, Fahrenheit 451, explain how society has become more ignorant in a technology-obsessed world.

In Fahrenheit 451 individuals are reliant on white walls which tell people how to live their life which results in being brain washed. Once society becomes reliant on technology individuals can’t think for themselves. “Nobody listens anymore. I can’t talk to the walls because they’re yelling at me. I can’t talk to my wife; she listens to the walls.

“In the last 50 years, up to 100,000 Americans lost their lives due to inactivity leading to some sort of conditional disease such as heart disease [including the laziness within people of society]” (Wise 12). So many people have died from becoming lazy, doing nothing but go on their phones, devices, rather than doing everyday things. Technology has changed the way society approaches life, always depending on it rather than themselves and others. The society today consists of nothing but TV screens, telephone, smartphones, iPads, and items the 19th century would consider a dream to lay hands on. A book written by Bradbury presents lack of effort people put into their lives and society; Bradbury predicts how the future will become later on in the society. Becoming more similar to the laziness and ignorance in the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the society today struggles the society today struggles with dependency on technology which results to lack of social interactions with one another and failure in becoming literate with books.

Our modern day society and its trends are represented by the behavior of Montag’s society. Although it was written in the 1950s, there are distinct characteristics of the society and its citizens which have a connection to our society today. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, he accurately described the characteristics of our society and the potential dangers of one’s ignorance. Montag’s society consists of citizens who repeatedly oppress themselves by refusing to understand the value of knowledge. Bradbury is warning us to remember the important matters, and set aside the insignificant possessions. Fahrenheit 451 accurately predicted the modern day trends of the constant abuse of technology, the significant impact that technology has on unsteady

Ben is also a very peculiar character.  The audience first encounters him with the full knowledge that he is dead.  Ben is also the one figure that is able to move freely between the past and the present.  Because Ben represents that which Willy seeks, Willy feels that he can achieve his goal the same way that Ben did and so he believes that "opportunism, cheating and cruelty are success incarnate" (Smith).

The following section connects Hyde’s acknowledgment concepts: call of conscience, reconstruction, calculating thought, as well as, social death with select scenes from the novel Les Misérables in order to prove that stories teach people how to live a fulfilling life. “…the future is constantly calling us to acknowledge and make use of our “response-ability” for making thoughtful decisions about how to build and live a meaningful life” (Hyde, 2006, p. 49). Again, this paper argues that Les Misérables teaches people the communicative lesson of acknowledgment, specifically, call of conscience, reconstruction, calculative thought, and social death which explain how people can live responsible and meaningful lives.

When Montag and Faber were talking Faber said,” This book has pores. It has features. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on paper the more literary you are.”(pg.79) The people in this society don't want their citizens to be intellectual they want them to be simple minded because they know power comes from people who take time to analyze what's around them. When you stand out in Fahrenheit 451 they know that you must have read a book because no one who lives there has the ability to learn and actually comprehend what's going on because they're mentally dying. When you use technology all day you don’t just lose brain cells but also,” research shows that sitting in front of our computers all day can also negatively affect your

Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 written in the 1950’s is still relevant because of certain social conditions that are very similar to our society today. The brain-dead society depicted in the novel shows us a futuristic world where readers are able to relate their lives to the way the society in the book operates. The people in Fahrenheit value the obedience and conformity of their society. They also focus on immediate gratification, mostly through entertainment and their use of technology. The destruction of books and knowledge shows how far into technology and entertainment this society is, so far that the people's education and their social lives are affected. Our society is full of technology like Bradbury’s society, and in many ways, it consumes our daily lives like it does in the novel. We use our technology for entertainment purposes, it causes us to do many things that are depicted in Bradbury’s novel. This is why we have many similarities with Bradbury’s society and in some ways have become this futuristic society because of how they teach education, how entertainment controls all facets of their lives, and how their social life and family dynamics has become almost nonexistent.

Oblivious to the Obvious It is very easy to get so caught up in life, that we forget to focus on living. This happens gradually and without any effort on one’s part. It usually begins when one starts dedicating their time to minuscule details and failing to remember to not take everything too seriously. In Martha Nussbaum’s article “A Silent Crisis” she identifies issues that are going unnoticed because of misdirected focus.

In this Dystopia the focal story is on Leo who is a brave man that stepped up to care for his aberrantly bulky family after his father passed away. Granting, in his world his family is actually common size. His mother barely cares for her family since her husband died, so all the pressure it put on Leo. Regardless of it being a burden, for Leo he handles it with exceptional maturity, as if he has been an adult since he was thirteen. Thirteen was a distinctive year for Leo because it was when he received a chip inserted into his wrist which was a tracking device for the government called the Bodhi. The central theme of the dystopia is that the Bodhi won the civil war and got rid of currency. The fine line between dystopia and utopia is that the Bodhi started out with noble intentions, but as the years progressed they began to become greedy and power hungry. By the time Leo is nearly an official adult the Bodhi have taken considerably from the families, so it is becoming increasingly tough to survive. For this reason, a rebellion is beginning to form called the Benjamin’s. Leo first learned about this group from a man who lives down the street from him who used to be a member of the Bodhi. This man left because he felt as if what the group was becoming was unethical. He exposes much of this information to Leo. This older male character is significant because he leads to Leo’s captivity later on. Despite having knowledge of the Bodhi, Leo has become complacent with life because

Gradually, Ben overall becomes sensitive to the environment. The sadness has overwhelmed him and left him a primitive form. He becomes impaired in the way that he relies on a caretaker and is unable to recapture the memories of himself after he’s gone. Once Ben becomes missing, people don’t search for him but instead call to ask where he has been. After about a week everyone in his life ceases to call or look. Annie is the only one to evoke the memories of Ben, the disabled man who became primitive

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” written by Eric Roth and based on a short novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a story of an interesting man who lives his life backwards. The movie takes place in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and is told in a flashback perspective from the love of Benjamin’s life, Daisy and their daughter, Caroline. I heard many times throughout my life and nursing career, including from myself, “If I could only go back and know what I know now.” Benjamin Button lived this theory, a theory that seems very similar to the Gerotranscedence theory (Touhy & Jett, 2016, p. 37). Scheidt (2017) states in regards to his own aging “I am dealing with