The Pedestrian And Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury once said: “Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.” In his works “The Pedestrian” and Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s ideas of the possible future come to life in dangerous ways. Another author, Kurt Vonnegut, in his work “The Big Trip Up Yonder”, also shows a possible future of society. The common ground of these stories is that the issues stem from technology. In science fiction novels there is generally a broken world that contains an

These actions cause society to be torn apart. This reinforces the idea that the misuse of technology can harm society through addiction and submission. In the story, an example of the extent of addiction is shown by the images that the narrator paints into the reader’s mind as Leonard Mead walks by seemingly empty houses: “And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows” (Bradbury 1). This quote shows the reader how dismal and seemingly-dead the town is. Since it is only 8PM when this scene takes place, the reader can make the connection that humanity’s addiction to technology is what lead them down this path. This shows how technology is dangerous to society in the way that humans become couch potatoes with a serious addiction to clicking through channels. However, there is another side to the human addiction to society: the people who haven’t gotten a taste of technology yet. These people are not immune to technology either, they can still fall under its influence: ‘“Where are you taking me?” The car hesitated for a second, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card under electric

When humans use technology in this way, they endanger their society. In society’s new, twisted form, the people devalue their family since technology allows them to live forever, and families live smooshed together in the same houses. In the story, the family only cares about gaining space and money for themselves, and not family. This is shown by the family member who is the new favorite, Morty, trying to murder the guy who wrote him into the will, Gramps: “Morty kicked the door shut, but not before Lou had glimpsed what was in his hand - Gramp’s economy-size bottle of anti gerasone, which had apparently been half-emptied, and which Morty was filling with tap water” (Vonnegut 4). The reader sees through this quote that the family doesn’t care about being a family at all, thanks to the technology causing them to live forever. This makes family mean nothing to the people. Family only seems to mean something when the people don’t know how long they have left, reinforcing the theme that technology makes people devalue their family. Another quote that reinforces the theme is one where Gramps gets his family arrested to have the house to himself: “He had called a cleaning woman to come straighten the place up, then had hired the best lawyer in town to get his descendants a conviction, a genius who had never gotten a client less than a year and a day” (Vonnegut 9).