Use Of Technology In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury warns about the overuse of technology in society. The overuse of technology distracts people from what is important in life. In the world of Guy Montag, technology rules society. Their world is filled with speeding cars and TV screens that span across entire walls. Technology has even replaced actual family members. Instead of going down the street, people have “families” that live in their TV screens, that, in the case of Guy’s wife, people sit and talk to all day. Leonard Mead’s society is the same as Montag’s. While walking down the street, he “whisper[s] to every house on every side as he moved ... ‘What’s up on Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9?’” (Bradbury 601). He doesn’t have to question if each house has a TV, he already knows, just like Montag knows

Also, even the law enforcement had become automated. When Leonard gets into a police car, he notices that “there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all” (Bradbury 603). Since everyone is inside watching their TVs, law enforcement isn’t needed anymore. As a result, even that got automated. Generally, sci-fi writers like Ray Bradbury include the science behind how all of their created technology works. However, Ray Bradbury leaves these details out. In “Kaleidoscope”, Bradbury does not describe how the rocket failed, or how it worked in the first place. As Russell Kirk writes, “He is not interested in the precise mechanism of rockets, but in the mentality and the morals of the fallible human beings, who make and use the rockets” (Kirk 2). He mentions, but does not describe, how all of the colonies on other the other planets work. He also doesn’t explain how their space suits work. Bradbury also does this in Fahrenheit 451. He leaves out the science of the machine that pumps peoples’ stomachs, and the science of their hound at the fire station. His omission of the details of the technology in all three texts support his rejection of