Emotion In Fahrenheit 451

"Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing," (Hunter S. Thompson). Society has become utterly obsessed with the feeling of an adrenaline rush. Sweaty palms, heart racing, goosebumps, a warm tingling sensation coursing throughout the veins; an illusion of invincibility. And, as stated by Thompson, people will take extraordinarily drastic measures to get their blood pumping. While an adrenaline rush is a feeling, it is not an emotion. The people who most commonly crave the intoxicating sensation provided by an adrenaline rush are the ones who are numb to any emotion at all. The apathy felt by these people creates a void inside their soul-- an eternal silence that brings desperation to feel something-- anything, even if it

Adrenaline brings dopamine, and dopamine brings pleasure. This is the all time low that has been reached by the impassive members of the dystopian society in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. As our society is consumed by social media, entertainment, and our obsession with happiness, we stop feeling and start to crave the oh so sweet sensation of an adrenaline rush. In the dystopian society of Fahrenheit 451, people are very dependent on their sources of entertainment. Television is a common form of entertainment because it stimulates the brain, and shows such as the White Clown bring a rush of adrenaline. "A minute later, Three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other's limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter. Two minutes more and the room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena, bashing and backing up and

In the novel, thinking freely and creatively is widely promoted in order to create an overall happier society. To do this, the government needed to condense information that creates bias- specifically books. Books progressively became shorter and shorter overtime until firemen resorted to burning books, "We burned a thousand books. We burned a woman," (Page 47). These are the drastic sacrifices that were made by society in order to eliminate controversy in literature in order to allow everyone to be happy. However, when there is nothing to be sad about, how does one know what happiness feels like? Members of society in Fahrenheit 451 are blind to the concept of happiness. They are narcissists and they feel entitlement to things that they are not entitled to. They are emotionally numb. In 2015 especially, we have become obsessed with eliminating controversy within literature. According to the Huffington Post, there has been a 25% increase in the number of books held in question per year since 2011. Additionally our society is becoming more secular and no longer relying on religious texts such as the bible to shape our world view. According to the Pew Research Center of Religion and Public Life, the current percentage of people unaffiliated with religion is a whopping 23%, a 7% increase since the 2007 survey in which on 16% were