Fahrenheit 451: The Overwhelming Force Of Technology

Akerejola 1

Mebibora Akerejola

Mrs. Street

Ninth grade literature

10 December 2016

The Overwhelming Force of Technology

If technology can affect people so negatively, then why is it used so much in the world today? The reason is because technology is a distraction for many people and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 shows this on numerous occasions. Fahrenheit 451 is about a dystopian society where it is illegal to own or read books. The government distracts people from books with technology, and this makes many people in society slaves to technology. Bradbury displays this by using characters to show that technology can be dangerous when used in the wrong ways.

Fahrenheit 451’s setting is in the future where technology is more prominent

Most of society does this too; however, there are some people that are different. One example of a person like this is Clarisse McClellan. Bradbury uses Clarisse to start a change in Montag and to show how a person who doesn’t use as much technology acts. “‘I love to watch people too much, I guess’... ‘You think too many things,’ said Montag, uneasily. ‘I rarely watch the “parlor walls” or go to races or Fun Parks. So I’ve got lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess’”(Bradbury 7). This quote shows that Clarisse isn’t like the average person in society in Fahrenheit 451 because she doesn’t use as much technology as other people. This lets her think more for herself and be more active, which people seldom are able to

Near the end of the book, Montag’s house is burned because he has books in his house, and he sees Mildred running out. “…Mildred came down the steps, running… she shoved the valise in the waiting beetle, climbed in and sat mumbling, ‘Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now…’”(Bradbury 108). This is Mildred’s reaction when the house is burning. She runs out without even looking at Montag and immediately starts to worry about her “family” in the parlor walls (wall sized television). Mildred was so consumed by technology that it became the most important thing to her. She had no life outside of technology, and it led her to forget about her husband. Scalar.usc.edu goes into detail about a person’s relationship with technology. “We depend on a technological element to receive our love. Technology never fights back. It obeys our commands as a friend in our time of need”(Scalar.usc.edu). This explains how a person would prefer technology over another person. Technology never responds negatively towards a person, unlike how a person can act negatively towards another person. This is why Mildred and most of society prefer technology than anything