Farenheit 451 Essay

Submitted By bob12754
Words: 522
Pages: 3

A World Without Books

Fahrenheit 451 is a science fiction novel written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950s. Fahrenheit 451 takes place in the future where all books are banned. Guy Montag is a fireman who, instead of putting out fires, burns any house which contains books. Ray Bradbury's purpose for writing Fahrenheit 451 is to show how television and other forms of media make people less interested in information. This causes people to become mindless and not have ideas of their own. Bradbury uses many quotes to show the purpose of Fahrenheit 451. An interesting quote Bradbury makes in Chapter One, "The Hearth and the Salamander" is, "Well, wasn't there a wall between him and Mildred, when you come down to it? Literally not just one wall, but so far, three?" (Bradbury 568). In this statement, Bradbury is saying that the walls of TV's in the parlor come between Montag and his wife, Mildred. Mildred is so engrossed in what she sees in the walls, that she thinks the people in them are her family. Montag and Mildred really have no relationship with each other. They have no conversations because they have no ideas of their own to talk about. The lack of information from books also causes their lack of interest in each other. While talking to Montag about the books he took from other houses, Beatty states, "Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm, do you follow me?" (Bradbury 703). Here, Bradbury means that people used to read books; then, as technology became advanced with televisions, earphones and other gadgets, people lost interest in reading. The world became very fast paced and the population grew. With technology continuing to grow in society, books are less