Fahrenheit 451 Social Commentary Essay

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Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, consists heavily of social commentary regarding technology and the extreme use of it. He makes sure to critique the issue of how much our society is involved in technology that they forget the true meaning of what it’s like to hold a book and actually read it. Many people preview his book and think, “who would ever burn a book?” but if one actually knows it, they would know that the firemen in the story burned pages and pages of books because they simply did not find a use for them anymore. All of our knowledge is based upon books and text... so without it, the world is gradually evolving into a technologically based world. “I face FaceBook more than books face me,” quotes poet, Marshall Davis Jones evaluating …show more content…

Ray Bradbury uses the characters, Clarisse and Mildred as an example of how our society is with more use of books and less technology. Clarisse, being the curious and unique character, represents a society more dependent on books. Mildred, being the shallow and mediocre character, represents the opposite society who is wholeheartedly dependent on modern technology. “Wasn’t there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran to the nearest store and telephoned her,” (Bradbury 42) the people in Fahrenheit 451’s society are so dominated by technology that they become brainwashed and careless of their surroundings, which is what Mildred was doing to her husband. When people become so invested in what’s entertaining them, it causes them to forget and it distracts them from what is really in front of them and what matters more. Towards the beginning it is obvious Guy Montag loves his job of demolishing books. However further on, his dramatic character shift leads him to hate his job because he realizes how horrible the act of burning books are. “The things you are looking for… ninety-nine percent of them is found in a book,” (Bradbury 86) this represents how our society has forgotten the importance of books and they rely too much on their screens to “guide”

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