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Alexander Liners

Mrs. Cramer

Comp 1 pd. 8

15 November 2019

Is Ray Bradbury right about technology?

Fahrenheit 451 is an early example of a dystopian tale about a future world that is

nightmarish rather than hopeful. In the books imaginary world, state police “fireman” burns

homes containing books, as books are forbidden by law. Guy Montag is a fireman who becomes

drawn into the world of clandestine book readers by a woman he meets. Guy eventually joins a

group of outcasts trying to preserve literature by committing entire books to memory. While

printed matter can be burned, memories cannot be erased. In the novel by Ray Bradbury, he

gives caution to the reader about dependence of technology and lack of intelligence.

In the novel, it vaguely observes technology by television. Since there were no books to

read, everyone would watch television. “Abruptly the room took off on a rocket flight into the

clouds; it plunged into a lime-green sea where blue fish at red and yellow fish...” (Bradbury, 93)

This quote is stating how Montag is describing the scene when Mildred’s friends came over to

watch television with her. After this, Montag meets with Faber and comes up with a plan to print

books to give around to other people that have the same interests in books as them. Then he

became curious about reading, he observes Mildred and her friends watching television. His

description allows us as the readers to understand the entertainment that people get in the world

from just technology. Montag then begins to worry for the people that unthinkingly use

technology. With this in mind, Montag picturing the scene in the movie “Burning Bright” as

bombs fall on the city. He tries to think of what Mildred was doing at that moment, which was
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probably watching television. Her being clueless to the bombs that are about to kill her. Montag

would call the people on television “the family”. Even though Montag is thinking specifically of

her, the same could be true of the people in the world who value technology and entertainment

over their own lives and not paying attention to what is happening.

Fahrenheit 451 resembles a lack of knowledge due to the fact of technology and books

being forbidden to read. Montag is the only sensible one that realizes that there is hidden

knowledge within those books. They lose their intelligence because they are forgetting how to

read and write. An example that was found in the text states; “There must be something in books,

things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something

there. You don’t stay for nothing.” (Bradbury, 35) Montag tells Mildred these words after he is

called to burn books that are at a house. The woman who lived inside, remained in there and

burned with her books. This event makes Montag encounter Clarisse, the first person he met who

was curious about the world and other people as he is with books. There must be something of

value in books to cause someone to want to stay with her books when her house is burning down.

Therefore, he is in search of the answer to what is within in these books.

As noted previously, Faber escapes from the city and discovers a group of people in the

woods. This statement goes along with how they decide to pass on their knowledge. Granger

explains to Faber how the group members plan on passing down their knowledge from what they

have learned and experienced from the books and how it should be done. Granger admits that he

and the other group members had burned their books, but they memorized different ones before

burning them, so they could use the knowledge and pass it on that way, rather than defying the

government in protest of burning books, Granger’s priority was to keep the information alive and

keep passing it on. If the knowledge within society was to die off, people wouldn’t know how to

think or how to feel their actual emotions. Keeping knowledge and education alive was what
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they were trying to accomplish and get everyone to realize. Knowledge can only be passed on to

those who are curious enough to want to hear it and learn about it. (Bradbury, 103)

Altogether, In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury gives caution to the reader about

the dependence of technology and the lack of intelligence they hold. Bradbury had the world

view of the future and how technology would take over. The government may even stop us from

reading books in the future and make everything on a screen. So, Bradbury was getting after how

we are going to be in trouble in the future because we cannot grasp the fact that we are becoming

distant from literature.

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Work Cited

Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012. Fahrenheit 451. New York :Simon and Schuster, 1967.