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Theme Of Addiction In Fahrenheit 451

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Everyone today has their nose into their phones and are virtually disconnected from society. We would rather text, snap, and tweet, rather than talk face to face, and when we do, we're not far from our iPhones. An addiction is an unhealthy dependence on something external to help one feel better. In the novel “Fahrenheit 451”, by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag, the main character, experiences alienation from other characters due to addiction to technology.

Throughout the story, Guy encounters alienation from his wife Mildred. When Montag is in his room feeling ill, he asked Mildred, “Will you turn the parlor off?, That's my family (said Mildred)… She went out of the room and did nothing to the parlor and came back.” (Bradbury 46) Mildred is putting her tv set before Montag. She …show more content…

After Montag turned the TV off, “The three women fidgeted and looked nervously at the empty mud-colored walls... These women twisting in their chairs under his gaze, lighting cigarettes…. Touching their sun-fired hair… their faces grew with silence. (91) With the addiction always at their hands, when it goes away, to them, its seems as if there is nothing do, or talk about. The women are experiencing withdrawals, which is both physiological and physiological. The women have zero reaction to the TV being turned off.

Later during the same episode, Guy was talking to Mildred's friend about her children, Mrs. Bowles, she ranted who great technology is and said, “I pluck the children in school nine days out of ten… You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch… it's like washing cloths… stuff laundry in and slam the lid” Mrs. Bowles is addicted and relies on technology to entertain her kids without having to do anything. Instead of properly parenting her children, Mrs. Bowles distracts them with technology and her walls in order to fulfill her own

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