Theme Of Technology In Fahrenheit 451

Technology has more control over people’s lives than many might think. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury the main character Montag who is a fireman starts to wonder about books, which are banned, and burned when found. He meets Faber, who helps him make a plan to have the firemen’s houses burned by planting books in them, but gets caught because his wife turned him in for having books himself. Montag escapes after a day of running from a mechanical hound designed to hunt people down, until he reaches the river where he meets other outcasts all sitting around a fire. Montag learns that the other outcasts also want to save books but they tell him that it is a slow process that involves patients until others are ready to listen. Later as they

The Book Fahrenheit 451 is “a novel intended as a searing indictment of the looming cultural distraction of technology, most notably television” (Weller). A lot of the story is written showing television as a major distraction that takes over people. Mildred, Montag’s wife, is willing to give up a third of Montag’s yearly pay for a fourth television, even after just getting their third television a few months earlier. She never considers what else they would have to give up for the fourth television, she just wants more. As Montag walks in to talk to Mildred, and her friends, Bradbury writes, “Montag reached inside the parlor wall and pulled the main switch… the three women turned slowly and looked with unconcealed irritation and then dislike at Montag” (Bradbury 90). Montag just wanted to talk to Mildred, and her friends, but they were so involved with the tv that they completely ignored Montag, until he turned off the television, and they became angry with him even though he just wanted to talk to them. Mildred, and her friends were so into the television that they didn’t want to be bothered by anyone, and just wanted to be left

When Montag walks up to the parlor he sees “Jet cars wildly circling an area bashing” and then sees “ a number of bodies fly into the air” (Bradbury 90). Mildred, and her friends are watching other people hurt and kill each other, as entertainment. Television has taken over Mildred’s life so much that her and her friend find nothing wrong with this. They watch tv all day, and don’t have any other way to keep themselves from getting bored. Price tells the reader how television is bad: “Many young Americans have had their native fantasy life removed and replaced by the imaginations of the producers of American television and video games” (Price). A lot of the youth have spent so much time watching television, or playing video games that all they know is what they’ve been shown through the tv screen. People need to be able to have their own imagination, and not have their life based off of what they watch on