Shallow Entertainment And Materialism In Fahrenheit 451

Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Phelps exemplify a theme in Fahrenheit 451 that shallow entertainment and materialism lead to empty lives by showing their unloving and trivial lives, their shallowness and conforming behavior, and the fact that they choose to stay unaware and unworried despite problems staring them in their faces. About her children, Mrs. Bowles says,“They’d just as soon kick me as kiss me. Thank God, I can kick back” (Bradbury 99). Mrs. Bowles’s children hate her and she hates them back, not even caring about them or their lives in the slightest, treating them like dirty clothes to put in a washer for a few days each month. Mrs. Phelps has a similar perspective and they both agree that children aren’t worth the agony. Later, Mrs. Phelps

I think he’s one of the nicest-looking men ever became president” (Bradbury 99). This shows that Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles only voted for Winston Noble because he was good-looking and tall, clearly showing their shallowness when it comes to important decisions. The only reason they didn’t like the other candidate, Hubert Hoag, was because his name was ugly in comparison to Winston Noble’s and other superficial reasons. This is how the majority of the society thinks because Noble won by a landslide, showing that these women represent the ideal conformists in society who are unknowingly oppressed and brainwashed. Mrs. Phelps tells everyone that her husband is at war and that she wasn’t worried about him, “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 97). As well as showing her unawareness of the world and backwards thinking, comments like these show that no one in this society - even husband and wife - really loves or is committed to someone else. Mrs. Phelps is an extremely shallow and chooses to not deal with her problems, leaving her life meaningless. She chooses personal pleasure and lack of responsibility, not caring or searching for meaning or purpose in her