The genre of science fiction often explores how technology hinders people’s ability to perceive the world around them. Technology has improved several aspects of peoples lives, for example, phones have given people the ability to communicate with people all over the world and provides instant entertainment. However, through extreme technological advancement, people are unaware of the negative effects before it is too late, today's society may be part of its own demise. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury depicts a technology dependent dystopian society where technological advancement has pushed humanity to achieve great things but at the caused of losing humanities creativity, critical thinking.
Technological advancement is so rapid in Fahrenheit 451, that despite the many advancements in technology, it is causing a downturn in society. Through analyzing Fahrenheit 451, the technology so deer the to the people will be shown as enforcement in their society for example, the hound is physical an enforcement and the parlor walls and seashells are visual or auditor enforcement, and will show how important the current society needs to pay attention to the advancement of technology in order to not make the same mistakes. In Fahrenheit 451, the society is so dependent on technology, they are consumed by it. The parlor walls are television screens that encompass entire walls just for their entertainment. Due to how immersive technology is, it negatively impacts their social skills and their conversations are meaningless which is evident when Clarisse states, “But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else” (Bradbury 15).
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The people do not think independently because they are constantly being blasted with “manipulating information and idea”, the government, “meticulously controls all aspects of political and social life through the of states power and modern technology” (Stillman 365), by telling people what to think, instead of letting them think for themselves, “but do you know, we never ask question, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing” (Bradbury 29) stated by Clarisse. This quote brings light to how the government just gives you the answer and does not give you the ability to think and ask a question and be creative. The parlor walls that they adore have hypnotized them in a dangerous way. Montag asks his wife to turn the TVs off, but she rejects his request because she views the families in the television programs as “[her] family” (Bradbury 46). Technology has even replaced the meaning of the word family. With the constant technological advancement people become consumed with technology and start separating from the rest of the world.
The increasing demand for more technology is used to fulfill people’s desires like Mildred wanting to put in a fourth wall, in order to completely immerse herself into this fake reality. This symbolizes her total separation from the world outside of the television. The television shows how it distracts people from complex feelings and problems and becomes its own world, which serves society and not the individual. This is evident from the quote by Faber “But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes. It is an environment as real as the world” (Bradbury 138). Faber is saying how the parlor walls have integrated society to have been given the ability to consume individuals in its own fantasy and encloses and separates them from society.
Seashell radio, used by Mildred extensively and others, is so overused that Mildred became an “expert in lip-read” (Bradbury pg.) and it has cut her off from day to day interactions with people. She is constantly needing stimulation, “That was all there was to it, really. An hour of monologue, a poem, a comment, and then without even acknowledging the fact that Montag was a fireman, Faber with a certain trembling, wrote his address on a slip of paper.” “’For your file,’' he said, “’in case you decide to be angry with me.’' (Bradbury 38), The rules do not even need to be enforced on the people, they are now self-imposed. For most people the rules are self-impose but for safe doing the government implements physical enforcement, The mechanical hound. which is used to silence and oppress and even killed a man that it thought was Montag. This society has put so much trust in technology similar We need to be cautious of the technology that we trust in, for example, Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more clever and society is trusting it blindly.
By analyzing Fahrenheit 451 the citizens beloved technology was shown to have served as physiological and psychological enforcements to keep them in line and from acting out. The TV parlors served at visual enforcement blasting citizens with manipulative ideas, the seashells This book is more relevant then it has ever been in today's society, people are becoming more and more distant from one another because of technology. People have become so oriented around technology and people need to be aware of the corruption it could produce.
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