Instant Gratification In Fahrenheit 451

In the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury warns the readers about the detrimental effects that can occur if society relies on instant gratification. Bradbury reveals in Fahrenheit 451, that when people are overly indulgent in instant gratification they will only be content on a surface level and won't be able to comprehend their own emotions. Throughout the novel there are two characters that demonstrate the importance of this warning: Montag's wife Mildred, and her friend Mrs Phelps.

First of all, Mildred reveals the warning about how relying on instant gratification can lead to ignoring your own emotions and relying on escapist methods to process these emotions. The first piece of evidence that clued me in on this is “She shoved

Because of the amount of media she consumes she became deluded and began to think that the “family” are real people, even though her house burnt down she could only think about the imaginary “family” on television. Another clue is how Mildred can't bear to be separated from the sources of media she consumes. She is unable to sleep without her seashells, earbuds that constantly make noise. “And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time. “ (Bradbury 10) To avoid confronting her reality and the world around her, Mildred uses these seashells to lull her to bed. She is so reliant on this machine that she isn't able to sleep without them, possibly suggesting that she is addicted to them. To further suppress her

First, Mrs Phelps has no issue remarrying if her husband passes away, she already has had three husbands and doesn't even think about them. This dystopian element of not caring or being empathetic towards those who you are supposedly supposed to care about demonstrates that she has lost what makes her human, her emotions. "Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It's our third marriage and we're independent. Be independent, we always said. He said, "If I get killed off, you just go right ahead and don't cry, but get married again, and don't think of me." (Bradbury, 91). This evidence suggests that in this society people who are meant to deeply care about each other seem to just coexist with one another, instead of bonding together. When Montag read the poem, Mrs Phelps subconsciously felt sad. However, because of the society she lives in she doesn't seem to be able to comprehend what she was going through. In a society where anger is the only “normal” emotion, she acted in the only way she knew. When the TV was turned off, Mrs Phelps and the ladies were very upset and angry. However they did not understand why they were angry. “Montag reached inside the parlour wall and pulled the main switch. The images drained away, as if the water had been let out from a gigantic crystal bowl of hysterical fish. The three women turned