Technology In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

One could state that Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a social commentary piece in the 1950s. The 1950s were a time of technological advancements. Technology makes things more convenient for this society. At a glance, everything seemed perfect; however, when one looks past that first layer of the faultless surface, they see how truly corrupt the time period was. There was a constant fear that one’s neighbor was a spy, people began to become ignorant toward their surroundings, and there was even a lingering feeling that war would be declared at any time. The novel shows the reader what society could become if the advances in technology take over the lives of the major population. Bradbury gets his message across by using paradoxical phrases

The 1950s had many advances in technology and society began to change. As a result, Bradbury was inspired to write a novel that takes place in a world where the general population caused the censorship of books and technology is all they have left. This is dangerous because of the fact that these people allow technology to become reality and lose track of the world around them. While Montag, a troubled fireman, is telling an old professor named Faber about how his wife says that books aren’t real, Faber tells him that it’s a good thing that they aren’t. Faber tells Montag that a TV parlor “‘grows you any shape it wishes! It becomes and is the truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and skepticism, I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra, full color, three dimensions, and being in and part of those incredible parlors’” (84). The reader can see that it’s very difficult to argue against something that looks so real. Books are just combinations of letters that create stories, but TV parlors show the real thing. When society only pays attention to the screens of a wall, it’s very easy to manipulate their minds. Similarly, people in the 1950s began to pay less attention to the world around them after the spread of new technology. In Fahrenheit 451, technology is essentially just a symbol of ignorance. In

One symbol he incorporates in the novel is the Phoenix. The Phoenix is a bird that builds itself up only to burn itself down over and over again. This is exactly what Bradbury witnesses and predicts within his own society. He brings this observation to life in his novel, Fahrenheit 451. Society brings destruction upon itself by banning books and praising ignorance. Granger, the leader of a homeless intellectual group tells Montag that “‘But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the phoenix never had. We know that damn silly thing we just did’”(163). This quote shows the reader that the people in Fahrenheit 451 are so ignorant, that they don’t learn from their mistakes. They do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. One could say that Bradbury is saying that the 1950’s society could potentially end up with the same fate. The events of World War II is still fresh in the minds of Bradbury’s society, yet the people are setting themselves up to have a World War III by turning on each other and pretending to be oblivious to the cold war. Using the Phoenix as a symbol in his novel, Bradbury predicts that his own society will build itself up, only to destroy itself over and over