Examples Of Dystopia In Fahrenheit 451

What would life be like if there were no reason or purpose to things? How would people respond to fake emotion, or react to artificial interaction? Would anyone be willing to do anything about it? Does this society sound like an exemplary utopia or a detrimental dystopia? Or do all of these factors seem to relate to life today? In the novel written by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, the society described was meant to be a utopia, where all was believed to be right, yet the society literally obliterated into a dystopia. Even though the civilization depicted in Fahrenheit 451 was a fictional dystopia, the ideals and way of life of that society can be connected to both the mental and physical actions of our current community. The setting of Fahrenheit

Differing from the values found amongst the people of Fahrenheit 451, of whom do not think in depth or see a purpose in life, those in our world today comprehend things in a million different ways and find any excuse possible to live life to the fullest. “Someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox. . .” (page 13). In Bradbury’s novel the inhabitants cease to have a point to live, the people do not know reason for anyone or anything. Even the standard of that society is for people to commit suicide and kill each other without remorse because there is a lack of purpose to life. Additionally, the people are unable to have a complexity of thought and therefore make their existence and actions pointless. Even though our society can relate because we too have people intentionally overdosing, like the characters of the book, and are plagued with depression, we understand that life has purpose. Today, individuals are proud to be different and are breaking societal norms, changing the world to fight for what they believe in. “She didn’t want to know how a thing was done, but why.” (page 57). The utopian theory of Fahrenheit 451 was that the people would

Likewise to the novel, the society’s current norm is having people be consumed and mesmerized by electronics, rather than finding genuine emotion within real people that actually care. The people of Fahrenheit 451 are self-obsessed and distracted by an artificial joy, fabricated by screens and the latest technology fad. For example, the parlor ‘family.’ In the fictional civilization the residents acknowledge those on television not as celebrities or actors, but as ‘family.’ “‘Will you turn the parlor off?’ he asked. ‘That’s my family.’”(page 46). In contrast, the society today is accepting of various levels of social interaction and it is still justifiable to have face-to-face communication. Still, in this case we may have more in common than we do in contrast. For instance, social media ‘friends.’ There are some things that we care for, things that control our lives, things that may be harmful to our well-being that are not actually real, these include: the selfie, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and numerous other social media sites or accounts. “. . .does your ‘family’ love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart and soul. . .?”(page 73). A common situation for citizens today is to be going out to dinner as a family, but while waiting for the meal, not actually talking to one another, but staring down at