Guy Montag's Use Of Ghost Images In Fahrenheit 451

The first scenes in Powaqqatsi show men walking up and down a muddy hill carrying bags of dirt to the top where someone else will comb through the piles seeking gold. Throughout these scenes the viewer will notice that all the men follow one and another to get from the bottom to the top of the hill. There is but one instance where we see a man make his own path down the muddy hill side to get back down to the bottom. In the background we are able to hear upbeat music playing while we watch the struggle these men go through to get up the hill. By this point in the movie the viewer is probably thinking about how terrible it would be to have to do this labor intensive work everyday, but what we don’t think about is the fact that these men don’t

There are many times where the camera filmed people walking in the streets and no one had a smile on their face. There is a certain disconnect in a later scene where ghost images of people are walking up and down a busy sidewalk right past a clear image of an old man. This disconnect between people, caused by technology, is mirrored in the book Fahrenheit 451. One night when Guy Montag gets home from work he enters his room just like every night. It’s not until he kicks over an empty pill bottle that he soon realizes his wife Mildred has attempted suicide. Not long after, two hospital workers come to pump Mildred’s stomach and replace her old blood with fresh, unpoisoned blood. The next day when Guy goes to talk about the incident that had occurred the night before, Mildred seems to remember nothing; instead she decides to explain the full plot of the TV show she watches without end in the room with three full screen walls. Much like the societies in Powaqqatsi and Fahrenheit 451, the communication between people has been overrun by

As the truck goes by it leaves a huge cloud of dust and gravel around the little boy who only seems to care about getting to his destination safely. This image in and of itself shows that the technology of vehicles is physically harming this child’s life. Some might also say while watching this scene unfold it seems as if the child is being punished for not being able to keep up with the advancement of technology where he lives. This harmful effect of technology on people is also shown in Fahrenheit 451. In the society the characters live in, people have tried to eliminate books all together so they can savor the meaningless nature of virtual reality. In the story, fireman are no longer required to put out fires, instead they start them. Books are no longer allowed in Guy’s society and fireman are called to houses, where books are found, and directed to burn them down. In one chapter the alarm sounds at the firehouse and all the men end up at a house of an old lady; they had found books in her attic and were called to dispose of them. They get right to work coating the books in kerosene and trying to get the woman out of her house. Beatty, one of the other firemen starts to light a fire to destroy all the books. Guy tries to buy the woman more time; trying to persuade her to leave the house before she got hurt.