Fahrenheit 451 Response Essay

Carson Miller

Shannon Pickett

English II Honors 3rd Hour

1 May 2023

[Title of Paper: An Informative Title]

Imagine a society, where the emotions, and all things that drive humans to work hard are stripped away. What would happen? All of our lives, we have been told that happiness comes from deep within and that without true happiness we lack motivation, effort, and an unfulfilled life. In Fahrenheit 451, author Ray Bradbury emphasizes the importance of happiness throughout society by showing the lack of emotions that the people in the book experience.

Throughout the novel, social norms cover people from their true identities. Seventeen-year old Clarisse McClellan, and her family are portrayed as outcasts. They are different from everyone

“Disrupted sleep, low life satisfaction, and poor self esteem are just a few of the negative mental health consequences that researchers have linked to social media '', Daisy Yuhas, a freelance science journalist and editor states. Even though Fahrenheit 451 was written before standard day social media, you can still see the effects of the technology in the novel. Overtime, the technology degrades peoples health and makes them put on this cover that hides the real them. People stick their faces in their phone and choose to communicate with technology instead of talking face to face. According to researchers at HelpGuide.Org, “Human beings need face-to-face contact to be mentally healthy.” Social Media is lowering people’s self esteem because they can only see a certain side of these people’s lives. According to Dr. Gordon Flett, Canada Research Chair in Personality and Health, states “Social media is the bane of people’s happiness, We also have a tendency to believe how others describe themselves, which leads to false assessment — and sets us up for greater unhappiness.” They only show the good times, or the good pictures. Everything positive they show, so it makes you feel like the odd one out and less of a person then they are. It isolates people from the real world. “Sharing all your selfies and all your innermost thoughts on social media can create unhealthy self-centeredness

Any person caught with any books in their home will be arrested, and their books will be burned. Fire Captain, Beatty, tells Montag that throughout the generations that books, movies, articles have all shortened so that it can keep the attention of those reading. Even schools shortened classes and made it easier for humans to digest knowledge without lifting a finger. Technology replaces books by making people essentially unconscious and feeds them this information through the parlor walls in their home. However, destroying books leads to an emotional block. It’s like they are wearing a mask to protect themselves from their true emotions. After Montag escapes the flea, he feels a place of protection and at ease. "This is all he wanted now. Some sign that the immense world would accept him and give him the long time he needed to think all the things that must be thought." Books hide the emotions of those in the world, we can identify this when Montag reads ‘The Sea of Faith’ to Mildred and her friends. “The chairs creaked under the three women. Montag finished it out: .. Where ignorant armies clash by night. Mrs. Phelps was crying. The others in the middle of the desert watched her crying grow very loud as her face squeezed itself out of shape.” Mildred and her friends haven’t read any books before, being able to put the right and deep words into a poem speaks louder than them watching the parlor walls.