Research Paper On Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 Essay In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 society has become dependent on technology. This is something that we might be headed for in modern society, statistics show that children today will spend 25% of their lives looking at screens. In the book however, things have gotten a lot worse. Families have rooms where the whole walls are televisions, and part of the fun is being able to respond to what’s on TV by answering with lines from your own copy of the script. Books are also banned in this society, and firemen such as Montag have jobs to burn the houses of people owning and hiding them. The reason behind this is that hiding knowledge and hiding questions will make people happier with their surroundings. One of the book's main

Beatty talks about how you have to teach children to be the same as their parents and other kids starting at an early age. People in this society are blinded by their technology, but since they want to feel like they are in control with their options, they are taught this at school. When talking about Clarisse, the girl that was hit by a car, Beatty says “luckily, queer ones like her don’t happen often. We know how to nip most of them in the bud, early.” (pg. 60) Clarisse was different because she asked questions and was curious about the world around her, she often liked to go slow and think things through. These are traits that are often discouraged in this society. She felt like she didn’t fit in with the other children her age, but she was also happier with her knowledge. She even asks Montag at one point “are you happy?” (pg. 10) At first he thinks the question to be nonsense, and of course he’s happy, he has a wife, a parlor with TV’s and a job. But the more he begins to think about it the more he realizes that he is trapped in his situation. Since he has never asked himself if he was happy, he never assumed

Again talking about students he says “don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.” (pg. 61) These sorts of things lead to trying to measure and equate things that will never be measured. This makes mankind feel as if they are a tiny speck of dust in a huge universe, they are lonely and filled with questions that will never be answered. If you don’t pose those questions to them, act as if they don’t exist, mankind will be more simple, but also happier and more at peace with the world. Another example he gives is about politics, Beatty says “if you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet give him none.” (pg. 61) This shows how the government is really working, even though there are going to be problems within it, if you hide them people will be better off. This is because if you have people that don’t know that their society is tax-mad or inefficient, it is better that they don’t worry at all then have to work hard to make improvements. This gives them the false sense that they have nothing to be improving. Even if they are happy, their happiness is built on hiding conflicts that are still there under the surface. Beatty also says that any man that knows how to take a TV apart and put it back together is happy in this society and