Fahrenheit 451 Technology Analysis

She is just trying to be like everyone else. During this conversation Montag brings up how books hold knowledge and asks Mildred to listen to him, instead Mildred completely ignores him and the conversation. The second quote that can support this claim is "Mildred kicked at a book. " books aren't for people. You read and I look all around, but there isn't ANYBODY!"

Mildred's influenced Montag in a negative way. For example Montauk walked into the bedroom and kicked "[an] empty sleeping pill bottle that was full at the start of the day" showing that Mildred taken all of the pills in the bottle.(13) Mildred she would rather take pills and not think which Montag grew to abhor. As we often do when we sleep "Mildred slept with seashells in her ears" just like the radio or the tv we leave on when we sleep.(13) As many of us do today she spends much of her time watching tv or listening to a device unconnected to a social life.

Technology has deprived the citizens in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and “The Pedestrian” their freedom to think with depth and the meaningful, social interactions that make up the quality of life.

Nathan Jurgenson effectively convinces his audience of the impact that technology has caused to our current society by using a variety of rhetorical tactics to prove as well as convince his audience. Throughout his article, he uses a variety of rhetorical tactics, for example, Pathos, Logos, and Ethos by giving strong ethical background information to prove his argument. Jurgenson argues that in our current era is overly exposed to technology. Technology has taken over the typical American. We have come to the point that we have to take our cellular devices everywhere we go in order to feel complete.

Mildred follows her society’s family functions and normalized ways, which is a big reason why her and Montag grow so distant. When Montag noticed Mildred in the bedroom, he thought, “and in her ears the little seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound.coming into the share of her unsleeping mind, the room was indeed empty” (Bradbury, pg 10). She was so disconnected from society at that moment as if she herself wasn’t in that room. Family’s are disconnected because of technology; in this case Mildred was so into her seashells to even acknowledge that Montag had entered the room. The effort was never there to actually talk, know, or even find out anything that could have happened in each other's day.

Montag is sick, physically and emotionally. Realizing his wife would rather watch TV than care for him; that the world is an empty, cruel place; and that there are things out there which are worth dying for makes him even more so. Technology starts to become a main influence on the actions of the people in society. Montag’s wife, Mildred, is said to have “lost herself in technology”. She confines herself in the living room of the couple’s house to three life-sized television screen walls. These walls speak to her and hold conversations with her more than actual people do. Mildred yells at Montag for turning off her “family”. Montag is her husband, but Mildred relates fictional programmed characters to her only family. The issue of technology technically brainwashes the people of this science fiction society. People believe that if technology gets more advanced it would end society because people would probably forget about everything. Bradbury thinks that with technology surrounding us, people will stop reading books. If people stop reading books they will forget about things that are extremely important, which include history, how and why people act in different ways, how life began, and other things that are important today but with technology they are going to fade away. Another thing that could happen if

Mildred blocks out Montag(...) wearing the Seashell ear-thimbles so frequently (...) she is used to reading Montag’s lips instead of (...) listening to him(Bradbury 16).” Her reliance on lip reading rather than listening to Montag shows how much she doesn't care about communicating with Montag. Mildred in the book is too reliant on technology, and this makes her disconnected from the real world. Mildred in the book doesn't like talking to Montag and likes to tune him out and the world.

This quote ties into the theme of unhappiness because Mildred is so brainwashed by technology that she does not see what she has right in front of her, which negatively affects both her and Montag, along with their relationship. During the chase where Montag locates to the river Bradbury states “He tossed his own clothing into the river and watched it swept away..in the dark” (133). Him throwing away his closes is a metaphor of him becoming a new person and that his ties from his past life are gone and thrown away. This quotes shows that Montag leaving his clothes is a metaphor for Montag being on his way to gaining happiness after living a past life of unhappiness

Mildred constantly shows Montag that she doesn’t care about him or what he does. She has no real connections in life and only cares about herself no matter what it costs other people. Technology rips away any real connections that Mildred has ever had with Montag to a point where she doesn’t even care about him. Mildred has succumb to technology and it has corrupted her life in such a way that her own husband no longer holds any emotional meaning to her anymore. In a horrifically shallow conversation between Mildred and Montag, Mildred says to Montag, “It's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a wall-TV put in. It's only two thousand dollars.” (Bradbury 20). The conversation goes on and Montag replies with, “That’s one-third of my yearly pay. It’s only two thousand dollars, she replied. And I think you should consider me sometimes.” (Bradbury 20). Mildred talks about how she needs another parlour wall to improve her life. This conversation inspires the idea that Mildred only cares about herself and how she is oblivious she is to Montag’s emotions. The idea that Mildred, through technology, has become completely detached from her husband and that she doesn’t care about him. She only cares about the

After burning a woman’s house, Montag comes home to a dark house. Mildred lay in their bed and spoke tersely and tensely. Mildred talked about her day, but did not ask Montag about his. When Montag looked at Mildred later that night, she was awake with a seashell in her ear. He proceeds to mention feeling like a stranger in his own home because he doesn’t really know Mildred (Bradbury 38-39).

This is extremely important because it eventually resulted in their death. On top of that, another one of the consequences of technology is that it can become an obsession and be used to eliminate meaningful interactions between individuals in society. Montag is searching for Mildred, who has her seashells in both ears and is making toast in the kitchen. Mildred is “an expert at lip reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear-thimbles” and does not need to hear what Montag is saying (Bradbury

“That’s awful! ...Why should I read? What for?”(Bradbury, 73) Mildred hates the fact that her house and her ‘family’ would burn down if Beatty and the other firemen found out about Montag and his books. Mildred doesn’t understand why Montag wants to reason with her and what he finds so special in books. Mildred is a selfish woman who cares only about herself and her friends. As long as nothing happened to her ‘family’, she’d be fine.

This made Montag realize that they don’t really love each other. This shows that the parlor walls and all the other technology were becoming a barrier between them, causing them to move farther and farther away from each other. In fact, Mildred calls the people on the television her family, which shows how much her life revolves around technology. “He heard the relatives shouting in the parlor… ‘That’s my family’” (Bradbury 45-46). At the beginning of the novel, they already had three wall-sized televisions and Mildred wanted a fourth one installed. She is so addicted to watching television because it allows her to pretend that she’s a character in the story. She can forget about what’s happening in her own life and not have to think about how miserable and sad she is. The quote shows that the people on the parlor walls are equivalent to her “family’ because she spends much more time with them than she does with her own husband, Montag, and values their company more as well. Mildred is so lost in her television that she’s completely disconnected from reality and doesn’t understand and value

(Bradbury 69). When Mildred mentions her family, she is referring to the television walls that she spends all day watching. Montag’s wife believes the technology is her real family which is insanity. Disregarding real people and turning to TV’s will lead to a lack of communication between human beings. Montag feels that Mildred doesn’t understand him and this is likely due to the fact that she believes that her “TV family” is everything she needs.

In regards to why Mildred did not know or acknowledge the disconnect between her and Montag, the most influential one is her reliance to technology. An example of Mildred’s dependency to technology is the quote “And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time.”