Fahrenheit 451 Social Commentary Essay

645 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ray bradburys distrust of technology

Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, consists heavily of social commentary regarding technology and the extreme use of it. He makes sure to critique the issue of how much our society is involved in technology that they forget the true meaning of what it’s like to hold a book and actually read it. Many people preview his book and think, “who would ever burn a book?” but if one actually knows it, they would know that the firemen in the story burned pages and pages of books because they simply did not find a use for them anymore. All of our knowledge is based upon books and text... so without it, the world is gradually evolving into a technologically based world. “I face FaceBook more than books face me,” quotes poet, Marshall Davis Jones evaluating …show more content…

Ray Bradbury uses the characters, Clarisse and Mildred as an example of how our society is with more use of books and less technology. Clarisse, being the curious and unique character, represents a society more dependent on books. Mildred, being the shallow and mediocre character, represents the opposite society who is wholeheartedly dependent on modern technology. “Wasn’t there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran to the nearest store and telephoned her,” (Bradbury 42) the people in Fahrenheit 451’s society are so dominated by technology that they become brainwashed and careless of their surroundings, which is what Mildred was doing to her husband. When people become so invested in what’s entertaining them, it causes them to forget and it distracts them from what is really in front of them and what matters more. Towards the beginning it is obvious Guy Montag loves his job of demolishing books. However further on, his dramatic character shift leads him to hate his job because he realizes how horrible the act of burning books are. “The things you are looking for… ninety-nine percent of them is found in a book,” (Bradbury 86) this represents how our society has forgotten the importance of books and they rely too much on their screens to “guide”

Show More
Related

  • Fahrenheit 451 Literary Analysis

    942 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Remember when we had to actually do things back in 2015, when people barely had technology and everyday life was so difficult and different? When people read and thought and had passions, dreams, loves, and happiness?” This is what the people of the book Fahrenheit 451 were thinking, well that is if they thought at all or even remembered what life used to be like before society was changed.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are two different types of people in the world, those who follow the rules and those who do not. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes about a futuristic time period where people no longer read books. Not only do they not read anymore but it is illegal. In this town the government controls what their people learn, and how they must think. In Ray Bradbury 's novel, Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury creates the stereotypical character, Mildred who does not think for herself versus Clarisse, a character who is not afraid to question things and who constantly challenges society.

    Read More

  • Censorship And Conformation In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 opens with Guy Montag, a fireman, reminiscing of the pleasures of burning. As the story unfolds, we learn that Montag is a fireman who rids the world of books by burning all that are found. Walking home one night Montag meets Clarisse, his strong minded neighbor. She begins peppering him with questions. Clarisse doesn’t go along with societal norms and Montag realizes that immediately. “I rarely watch the 'parlor walls ' or go to races or Fun Parks. So I 've lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess.” (Bradbury 3) Clarisse uses her imagination brought by stories from books and family instead of watching television. Clarisse helps Montag realize that the government induced censorship and conformation is stifling society’s education and imagination. Montag’s wife, Mildred ,is incapable of having a personal conversation with Montag. She conforms to societal standards and is greatly

    Read More

  • Essay On Dystopian Society In Fahrenheit 451

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    At what point can a society be described as dystopian? Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, tells the story of a man named Guy Montag who lives in a dystopian society where life isn’t as great as the government makes it out to be. Our society is slowly becoming more and more similar to the dystopian society found in Fahrenheit 451 in the fact that many families aren’t as stable as most might desire them to be, the government mostly ignores the country’s ideals and only focuses on its own for the sake of its own benefit, and many of society’s ideas are being disrespected or noted as activities that people shouldn’t be allowed to indulge in while in this country through censorship.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by author Ray Bradbury we are taken into a place of the future where books have become outlawed, technology is at its prime, life is fast, and human interaction is scarce. The novel is seen through the eyes of middle aged man Guy Montag. A firefighter, Ray Bradbury portrays the common firefighter as a personal who creates the fire rather than extinguishing them in order to accomplish the complete annihilation of books. Throughout the book we get to understand that Montag is a fire hungry man that takes pleasure in the destruction of books. It’s not until interacting with three individuals that open Montag’s eyes helping him realize the errors of his ways. Leading Montag to change his opinion about books, and more over to a new direction in life with a mission to preserve and bring back the life once sought out in books. These three individual characters Clarisse McClellan, Faber, and Granger transformed Montag through the methods of questioning, revealing, and teaching.

    Read More

  • Impact of Technology Explored in Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

    1067 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever sat at a table surrounded by friends whose eyes were glued to their phones? According to ABC News, kids spend an average of seven and a half hours on technology and only 38 minutes of reading in a day. In Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, the society is very similar to ours. Technology has taken over and has made society very closed minded. People are unwilling to remove their eyes from large TV screens to see why things happen, and to notice all the little things in life that make it worth living. Without open-mindedness and curiosity, society would corrupt like in Fahrenheit 451, all because of an overuse of technology. Technology causes society to become a dystopia and once the society is one, there comes a point where you cannot reverse it. Bradbury emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the world and what happens when you become addicted to technology.

    Read More

  • Society In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

    1927 Words  | 4 Pages

    The start of the technological revolution was 1975. The first personal computer had just been made available to the public and about ten years later, cellular telephones started to become popular (?). A few people using a cell phone turned into a few dozen people who turned into a few hundred and by 2013, nearly seven billion cellular phones were in use around the world (?). Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950s, depicted a future America where the world revolved around technology. Bradbury wrote of a society where intelligence was feared and hated, books were banned, and television controlled most everyone and anything. He was concerned that in the decades to come, the world would be changed by technology

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 Essay

    1147 Words  | 3 Pages

    Bradbury saw little use in the technology being created in his time, he avoided airplanes, driving automobiles, and eBooks. Bradbury did not even allow his book to be sold and read on eBooks until 2011. If one takes away books, then one takes away imagination. If one takes away imagination, then one takes away creativity. If one takes away creativity, then one takes away new ideas for technology and the advancement of the world.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 Clarisse Character Analysis Essay

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    Clarisse is a very smart and thoughtful character. She isn't stuck on materialistic things like other people in their society; she enjoys nature. Some personality traits would be confrontative/extroverted, knowledge-seeking, scatterbrained, curious, and knowledgeable. Because of these things, she is considered crazy and is an outcast: "I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane. Isn't this a nice time of night to walk?" (Bradbury 5).

    Read More

  • Dystopian Society In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ray Bradbury introduces in his novel, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), a dystopian society manipulated by the government through the use of censored television and the outlaw of books. During the opening paragraph, Bradbury presents protagonist Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books, and the society he lives in; an indifferent population with a extreme dependence on technology. In Bradbury’s novel, the government has relied on their society’s ignorance to gain political control. Throughout the novel, Bradbury uses characters such as Mildred, Clarisse, and Captain Beatty to show the relationships Montag has, as well as, the types of people in the society he lives in. Through symbolism and imagery, the audience is able to see how utterly unhappy Clarisse, as well as Faber and Granger, represent the more thoughtful minority population.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 Critical Analysis

    735 Words  | 2 Pages

    The North Korean government is known as authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship. North Korea could be considered a start of a dystopia. Dystopia is a community or society where people are unhappy and usually not treated fairly. This relates how Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 shows the readers how a lost of connections with people and think for themselves can lead to a corrupt and violent society known as a dystopia.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 essay

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    Are you really happy? Or are you sad about something? Sad about life or money, or your job? Any of these things you can be sad of. Most likely you feel discontentment a few times a day and you still call yourself happy. These are the questions that Guy Montag asks himself in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book people are thinking they are happy with their lives. This is only because life is going so fast that they think they are but really there is things to be sad about. Montag has finally met Clarisse, the one person in his society that stops to smell the roses still. She is the one that gets him thinking about how his life really is sad and he was just moving too fast to see it. He realizes that he is sad about pretty much everything in his life and that the government tries to trick the people by listening to the parlor and the seashells. This is just to distract people from actual emotions. People are always in a hurry. They have 200 foot billboards for people driving because they are driving so fast that they need more time to see the advertisement. Now I am going to show you who are happy and not happy in the book and how our society today is also unhappy.

    Read More

  • Fahrenheit 451 5 Paragraph Essay

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    You take advantage of your life every day. Have you ever wondered why? You never really think about how much independence you have and how some of us treat books like they’re useless. What you don’t realize is that both of those things are the reason that we live in such a free society. If we didn’t have books and independence, we would treat death and many other important things as if it were no big deal. That is the whole point of Ray Bradbury writing this book.

    Read More

  • A Parallel Between Two Worlds: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bradbury attacks loss of literature in the society of Fahrenheit 451 to warn our current society about how literature is disappearing and the effects on the people are negative. While Montag is at Faber’s house, Faber explains why books are so important by saying, “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores” (79). Faber is trying to display the importance of books and how without them people lack quality information. In Electronics and the Decline of Books by Eli Noam it is predicted that “books will become secondary tools in academia, usurped by electronic media” and the only reason books will be purchased will be for leisure, but even that will diminish due to electronic readers. Books are significant because they are able to be passed down through generation. While online things are not concrete, you can not physically hold the words. Reading boost creativity and imagination and that could be lost by shifting to qui...

    Read More

  • Social Commentary in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    Albert Einstein once said “…Imagination is more important than knowledge…” but what if people lived in a world that restrained them from obtaining both knowledge and imagination. In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the main character, Montag, expresses his emotions by showing the importance of social values. Throughout the novel, the secretive ways of a powerful force are exploited, the book also shows the faults in a new technological world, and the author shows the naïve way an average citizen in a dystopian society thinks.

    Read More

More about Fahrenheit 451 Social Commentary Essay

Open Document