True Feelings In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

In a world where books are outlawed and knowledge is scoffed, separation from true feelings means true happiness. Or does it? Ray Bradbury’s book, Fahrenheit 451, illustrates exactly what the world would be if people were separated so completely from their feelings that they were unable to comprehend the true meaning and feeling of real satisfaction. This book also demonstrates the strenuity of family relationships when too much technology and disconnection goes on. Although Fahrenheit 451 and our society today are distinctly different, they also have some startling similarities. Why in the world are people unable to perceive their feelings? In Fahrenheit 451, people are disconnected from their feelings because they always indulge themselves

Montag, the main character, kicks an empty bottle of sleeping pills that Millie, his wife, had taken. Millie tries to divert herself from her feelings by losing her inhibitions. “The small crystal bottle of sleeping tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty…” (Bradbury 11). While Millie only wants escape and have thoughtless satisfaction, she accidentally harms herself. Even in our society, people get themselves drunk or on medication to ignore feelings they don’t desire. However, in Fahrenheit 451, people mindlessly stare at the television, absorbing everything without a single moment’s thought, and they blissfully slip into a world with everything they need, or believe they need, to be supplied for them, no questions asked. An example is Mrs. Phelps, who is so influenced by television and a clueless idea of emotions that even though she sees “...chopped off each other’s limbs...bodies fly in the air” (Bradbury 90), she doesn’t care. Even with these

While many people in our world have strong connections to their families, the people in Fahrenheit 451, such as Mrs. Bowles, think family are only worth as much as to “...heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch...just as soon kick as kiss me” (Bradbury 93). Poor Mrs. Bowles simply doesn’t understand why family could ever be important. However, in our society, parents do occasionally send their children places for a few hours to be alone, but most of the time parents don’t just want to keep their children distracted; they desire for their children to be content. In Fahrenheit 451, when Montag asks Millie where they first met and fell in love, Millie “‘Can’t...remember’...” (Bradbury 40) and decides it “‘...doesn’t matter’” (Bradbury 40). Although Fahrenheit 451’s society constitutes that nothing truly matters except television, and where you met your spouse or whether you love them doesn’t matter. Differing from this society is our own society, where people remember and cherish where they met their spouses and to what extent they love them. Despite the depressing unreality of Fahrenheit 451’s clueless society where people don’t care much for their families, our society cares more about their families than anyone