“Sometimes writers write about a world that does not yet exist. Because we need to illuminate a path we hope or we fear humanity will take (xi).” When Neil Gaiman wrote this portion of the introduction for Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, he wanted to help explain the reason behind the novel. Throughout the story Montag, a fireman (firemen don’t put out fires, instead they create fires by burning books as soon as they are seen), comes to a realization of how messed up their society really is. He notices how Mildred sits in front of the ‘family’ everyday and has the TV think for her and tell her what to think. Montag begins slowly to read book and begin to understand the importance of the knowledge inside. Bradbury sets this book in the future for a reason, that reason is to show what he fears could one day occur: how technology will take over the lives of people and how people won’t understand the real significance of books.
One of Ray Bradbury’s fears from writing this book was how technology will soon take over the lives
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When he is met with Granger and his folks, Montag realizes the true importance of books. It is obvious then that Bradbury wanted to get the point across about the pure meaning of books. One of his biggest fears is to acknowledge that someday people won’t understand what lies within books; that in the future people will only care about what makes them content in the present moment. People in the future won’t care about the people in the books whom firemen say didn’t exist. In the novel, Beatty tell Montag, “The real beauty of fire is it destroy responsibilities and consequences (page 109).” What Beatty says, is exactly what Bradbury despises. He doesn’t wish for the future to think that there is nothing worth reading in books. Bradbury believes that knowledge is held within books themselves. The fear of in the future people will despise books and everything they stand for scares