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Imagine a World

Imagine a world where people prefer a TV to a spouse; a place where people who are extroverted need to see a doctor. This is the world of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. People in the book “say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else.” (Bradbury 35). The people in Fahrenheit 451 are isolated and indifferent. They even actively try to run pedestrians over (129). People are considered ’strange’ if they like to talk people. There are three factors that highlight this indifference: SeaShells, the parlors and an aversion to books. However, these technologies and ideas are present in the past, present and future, as well as in Fahrenheit 451. Exploring these technologies and ideas reveals a lot about our society as well as in Fahrenheit 451’s society.

The parlors are rooms with giant television screens on all sides. People watch these screens and interact, following a set script (24). These parlors were radically different from the television Bradbury experienced. In 1951, when the book was written, television had a small black and white screen. Bradbury was concerned about the television because he saw that people could get sucked into watching that one special show every week, and how that might progress into watching television almost all day. Today, we’re well on the way to what Bradbury predicted, as the average American adult watches 5 hours of television a day (uoflife.com). Today, we have large screen televisions that almost cover a whole wall, very similar to Bradbury’s parlors. In the future, we might reach Bradbury’s predictions with a screen on each wall, but we’re not there yet. However, Bradbury’s predictions get more accurate, with the SeaShells.

In Bradbury’s book, the SeaShells are small earphones that broadcast news and music into your ears all the time. Mildred, Montag’s wife, keeps hers in all the time, and just lip-reads instead of taking out her SeaShells to listen to people. These are similar to iPods today. People keep one iPod headphone in while they talk to others. In Bradbury’s day, the closest thing to iPods were radios and record players, which were becoming popular. He included Seashells in his book as a warning because he realized if radios and record players were taken to the extreme, they could become a social hazard. Music went from something one listened to in your home some times to something that one could listen to all the time. Bradbury’s insights are eerily accurate, considering when the book was written.

The aversion to books, and by association, knowledge, is a key factor in the indifference and separation of people of the society of Fahrenheit 451. In our society, if we didn’t have books, we wouldn’t have learned many of life’s lessons or learned to step out of our own shoes and into someone else’s. For example, we might not have learned how it feels to be discriminated against, both in the work force and in society. Books help us gain a different perspective on the world.

The people in Fahrenheit 451 didn’t value books, so they did not learn how to see something from another’s point of view. They became less understanding, more secluded, and more indifferent. This attitude became a major part in the dystopia that Bradbury created.

This attitude towards books in Fahrenheit 451 is much different than Bradbury experienced. Bradbury lived in a society that liked to read. Instead of reading solely for school, as many students do today, students in 1951 read for their own enjoyment. As a result, they were much more social. Teens today just don’t talk as much about ‘deep things,’ such as relationships or religion with elders or peers. In the future, we may become even more reclusive and never talk about those things.

These three examples show how much our society has changed from Bradbury’s time. The average family, or teen, in the 1950’s probably didn’t watch much television or listen to much radio or music. Today, the average teen listens to much more music then the average teen from the 50’s because it is more available and portable. Americans, as a whole, seem to becoming less social and more involved in their personal worlds of iPods and TV’s, the technology of today. The world that exists with these technologies is one that is far less personal then the world that existed fifty years ago.

While Bradbury predicted a more extreme version of these three technologies and ideas, the central idea remains the same: technology can lead to social disorder. People can become less social and care less about people and their emotions, because of technology. While Bradbury experienced only the very beginnings of these technologies, he saw where they could lead. He warned us about what they, and our society, could potentially become. We have changed radically from the society in which Bradbury lived, but we have drawn close to his predictions.

~Scooter

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