Fahrenheit 451 Book Report

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, describes the life of Montag in a society where speaking to people is rare and books are banned. Montag’s life is ordinary, he goes to work as a fireman, comes home to his depressed wife, and then repeats it all over again the next day. This dystopia is based in the future and portrays what Ray Bradbury believes the future will be like, full of antisocial people that are restricted from reading and learning. Ray Bradbury was accurate in depicting that the future is full of ignorant, antisocial, and easily manipulated people.

The book depicts Mildred as a very ignorant person. She forgets important details and ignores the world around her. “I meant to tell you. Forgot. Forgot...Whole family moved out somewhere. But she’s gone for good. I think she’s dead.” (p.g.44) . In this quote Mildred told Montag, Clarisse, a girl who changed his perspective on the

world, has died. This quote proves she doesn’t worry about the surrounding world. So many people in our world ignore what is happening around us and fail to see certain events are important. Another example of ignorance is when Montag and his fellow firemen are playing cards in the station. They are talking in brief sentences and ignore the radio in the background broadcasting about the war, as if the war is no big deal. People in our world just expect it to be someone else’s problem. In another section, Mildred and her friends are discussing the war and government. To them, war is just another common event, they talk about it as if it’s a common occurrence. “It’s always someone else’s husband dies, they say” (p.g. 91). They believe their husbands will be fine and believe that the government is telling them the truth. Just like people today that don’t believe anything bad could ever happen to them. The characters continuously fail to realize they are uninformed and easily manipulated just like people in our society today.
The government in this dystopia can tell the citizens anything and the citizens believe them. People will believe anything they see whether it is logical or not. The firemen burn books because they believe books are useless and give people nothing but incorrect thoughts. “Well, Montag take my word for it, I’ve had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say NOTHING!” (p.g. 59). In Beatty’s speech he exclaims how the books say nothing and that they don’t have a meaning and that’s why they are so hated. The government has brainwashed them. Just like people today, they don’t think for themselves and are taught to keep conversations short and thoughts even shorter. You are threatened with death or imprisonment if you don’t conform with what they are trying to tell you. Like the women that they burned with her house because she wouldn’t leave. They are told it is wrong to disobey and in return they won’t care about eliminating you. Just like it is wrong to be social in this society and they call Clarisse antisocial to ostracize her from the “normal” citizens.
In their society from the beginning they are taught by computer screens.

The screens tell them what they need to know and don’t allow any questions to be asked. Our world keeps relying solely on technology if we lost it, we would be lost. They are taught short responses to minimize conversation and children that talk too much are kicked out of school, like Clarisse. After school they go home and watch tv. “My ‘family’ is people. They tell me things; I laugh, they laugh! And the colors!” (p.g. 69). People don’t hang out with friends instead they relate to the characters on tv. We don’t talk to people instead we text or post on social media. Just like Mildred refers to her shows as ‘her family’, we refer to the people we talk to on social media as friends, but we undoubtedly miss the whole idea of friends.. She relies on the shows and doesn’t rely on the actual interactions of people. Others, instead of going home and watching tv, will go to parks to destroy things. Socialization is unheard of and kids don’t have any friends. They are too entertained by the technology around

us,
In our world today people don’t worry about things in the world, they believe anything they are told, and don’t socialize with people around us. Instead of ignoring the world we have, we should stay informed and prove Ray Bradbury wrong. Prove his prediction, that the future world would be full of ignorant, antisocial, and easily manipulated people, is not correct. But for now he was correct in predicting that the future is full of ignorant, antisocial, and easily manipulated people.