Citizens obtain their happiness through mindless television shows, high speed driving, and killing of other citizens. In order for the government to control the emotions of their citizens, books are burned, news is censored, and children are, “ snatched from the cradle (Bradbery 60),” in order to indoctrinate them young. Millie and Clarisse are both citizens of the society living two different lives under the government, one of which is accepted and the other frowned upon. Both Mildred and Clarisse play a significant role in Montag's life, yet their lives differ significantly, from their personalities to their survival in the community.
When it comes to emotional desensitization, Montag's counterpart in Fahrenheit 451 is Mildred. The wife of Montag, Mildred, is totally consumed by her "parlor walls,” large television screens, and the naive world they portray. She is unable to hold meaningful conversations or emotionally connect with others because she is preoccupied with these screens. On the other side, Montag starts to ponder the culture they inhabit and finally starts to feel his emotions more. Throughout the dystopian novel, Ray Bradbury brilliantly demonstrates the act of emotional desensitization by contrasting Mildred and Montag to one another through their actions and thoughts.
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes about a future dystopia in the year 2050. The main character, Montang, is a firefighter, but not the one you might think of. In this world, firefighters burn books instead of saving people. One night Montag meets a young-seventeen-year old girl named Clarrise. And through a conversation with her, Montang learns how little he knows about the world he lives in.
Fahrenheit 451, the novel written by Ray Bradbury, is one of the most influential and popular books of the dystopian genre. It follows the character Guy Montag as he begins to realize that the world around him is not as perfect as he once thought, and that the government he has been working for may be barring him from trying to access the truth and find his purpose in life. The book itself also holds many parallels to the time period in which it was written, the 1950s. The 1950s was a period of fear for most, as it was in the aftermath of World War II and in the midst of the Cold War. Bradbury uses multiple elements of his dystopia, such as government control, superficiality, and a consumerist culture, to comment on and communicate his concerns
He explores the possibilities that would make humanity the best it can be (“Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)” 98). In one of his best works, Fahrenheit 451, he uses this theme by showing how humanity needs more awareness of human nature. In this novel, most of the population are conformists and don’t care about human nature.
Tanvi Kurupati Mr. Buonadonna English 1 Honors Period 6 3 March 2023 How Fahrenheit 451 Demonstrates Dehumanization Caused by Modern Technology In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury depicts a world in which technology is extremely advanced and in which people have no responsibilities. He explores how censorship of any media that could be considered “offensive” can change society and human nature. Through Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury tried to prove that the complex, industrialized, affluent, educated, safe, socially advanced, and technologically advanced world of modernity is dehumanizing and must be abandoned because the conditions in which people live in are making people deeply depressed and suicidal through the lack of uniqueness, peoples’ relationships
It’s all about the courage to speak up about society, but everyone is inflicted with fear and follows the way society is run, and eventually, everyone is brainwashed. In Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451, society has been controlled by the influence of technology and government laws restricting the ownership of books or reading them. All day, their society is preoccupied with media on screens, influencing them to follow their decision making ruining the idea of individual thought. The main character Montag comes to his senses and wants to change their society back to how the past used to be. Throughout the book, Ray Bradbury uses the illegal use of books and knowledge to show the dehumanization of humans who don’t have any individual thoughts.
Jayden Brogden Mr Goetz English 1 16 March 2023 The Dehuminization Of People In Farhenhiet 451 In Fahrenheit 451, there is so much wrong with their society ranging from discipling for reading books, chasing people with mechanical dogs, and burning homes.
Wrought in the imaginations of a number of science fiction authors, such as Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, comes the iconic embodiment of the unknown, the alien. Crafting the notion of a human being coming face-to-face with a hostile, inhuman being became a tool in the early science fiction writer’s cache. The term inhuman, according to philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard, refers to the dehumanizing effects of technology in society as well as the societal frameworks’ promotion of suitable collective behavior while seeking to repress of the rest of what lies within humanity (2). Both of Lyotard’s definitions appear in science fiction in various forms such as androids and artificial intelligence as in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot short story collection, or the fictional societies that attempted to reform man in a certain framework as in the work of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
A utopia is considered an ideal society where every problem has a solution, and everyone can live happily, but the fact that it is ideal means that this society may never exist. Many authors have written about dystopias, which are “utopias” that turned out worst than our contemporary society, and one of these novels is Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. This novel explores what would happen if every existent book should be burn down and we would live in a world without literature; where there isn’t a requirement to even think because the only activity available is watching TV. The book criticizes the technologic vice that is taking over the world and it shows what would happen if this vice continues growing exponentially and the terrible effect it would have over everyone. This dystopia Bradbury created is valuable because it shows the importance
Fahrenheit 451, a book created by the mind of Ray Bradbury, was made to show the challenges of the Utopian lifestyle, but it is also a fantastic example of the Hero’s Journey. "We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.” -Bradbury
What could our society be like in the future? A utopia or a dystopia? The dystopian conventions of censorship, surveillance and lack of freedom are key themes in the novel Fahrenheit 451 and are conveyed through the narrative elements of setting and plot by Ray Bradbury. The novel has allowed me to reflect upon these issues and relate them to my issues in our modern-day society. Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel set in the year 2049, and follows the rebirth/transformation of Guy Montag going from a book burning firemen to a book loving anarchist that opposes the societes beliefs which soon leads to him deserting his house and fleeing to a camp of intellectuals.
I would argue that women are often stereotyped and dehumanized as characters in science fiction books. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury, women are portrayed as weak, emotional, and a hindrance to the male protagonist. This scene in particular is an example of women being objectified. “Mildred ran from the parlor like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles came through the front door and vanished into the volcano's mouth with martinis in their hands.
The “perfect” society that is created, comes at the cost of individuality. In Ray Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, the individuality of the citizens is threatened by the amount of government control in their lives, and can be seen through the Utopian goals, the government punishments, and the citizens’ conformity in response to this. The Utopian goals that the society holds limits the individuality of the citizens. Their attempt to create a controlled environment leads to more government control than necessary.
“Gray animals peering from electric caves, faces with gray colorless eyes, gray tongues and gray thoughts looking out through the numb flesh of the face” (Bradbury 132). The people in Fahrenheit 451 are exactly as the protagonist, Montag, describes them: gray, animal, dehumanized and lifeless. Ray Bradbury has built a society in which people spend their days mindlessly watching television. Violence, bullying and murder are common, especially coming from school children, who spend their school days watching even more television. Montag is a fireman who burns books and slowly comes to understand the dehumanized and meaningless state that his society is in.
