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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – Literature review
Fahrenheit 451 is a novel by Ray Bradbury describing an American society of 24th century where reading books is prohibited by the government who instead promotes the use of new technologies in everyday life. The novel highlights the way television and other technological tools destroy people 's interest in the pleasures such as literature and reading; resulting in a society which borders on stupidity and ignorance and that is easily controllable.
As a comparison, if we were to believe recent studies, in Romania more than 50% of the population has not read one single book during a whole year and more than 80% of Romanians admit watching TV on a daily basis. The future sounds
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In the beginning, Montag was content with the work that he did but after witnessing the death of the old woman, he regards his coworkers in a new light. Worse yet are the likewise mindless friends of Mildred. Montag forges a friendship with Faber, a fellow nonconformist, in order to understand the books. Faber becomes his partner and the voice in his head through a two-way radio.
From the automatic thinking machine he used to be, Montag emerges from his cocoon as an intellectual and independent thinker. Rooted in humanity, Montag accepts his responsibility of rebuilding the world from devastation. Montag depicts the inner struggle that fights between what feels right and what a person is told is right.
Similarly to the society described by Fahrenheit 451, nowadays we see technology, mostly led by consumerism, entertaining in the same way as seashells in Fahrenheit 45. Home cinema systems may be seen as similar to the parlour walls and electronic literature is replacing the traditional paperback. There is no more need to feel the scent of an old book, whereas everything has been digitalized and hard copy books and literature are replaced with electronic