Part 2: Pages 92-110

Focus Questions:

Will the future be marked by further progress, material and intellectual, or by decline? Why?

Is it inevitable that current social and power structures will be the form of future social organisations?

How, and to what extent, will advanced technologies affect the lives of ordinary people?

What the text suggests:

The text suggests that intellect is no longer admired. It is seen no longer as a good thing to be intellectual but as a threat. It also suggests that everything is judged based on image and not content or substance. We can already see this happening on a smaller scale today in places like the music and fashion industry. People are being judged on how they look and not on how well they sing or how good of a person they are. This text is in a way our world on a extreme level.

It also suggests that technology and the media is more important than family, or anything else.

How the text presents these ideas:

When discussing a recent election Mildred and her friends talk about the opposition candidate. “What possessed the Outs to run him? You just don’t go running a little short man like that against a tall man. Besides – he mumbled. Half the time I couldn’t hear a word he said. And the words I did hear I didn’t understand.”

This demonstrates that people are judging a book by its cover, so to speak. That decisions are made about political leaders based on their appearances rather than what they have to say.

Once Montag has read the books to Mildred and her friends Mrs Phelps gets upset and this makes Montag question whether his curiosity is worthwhile. “It shocked me to see Mrs. Phelps cry. Maybe they’re right, maybe it’s best not to face things, to run have fun. I don’t know. I feel guilty –“

Montag is listening to Mildred and her friends talk about children. “I plunk them in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it’s not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch. It’s like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid.” Mrs. Bowles is the only one of them to have children, the other two are almost repulsed at the thought but Mrs. Bowles acts as if they are nothing but a household chore. She plays it off like they are the easiest thing to look after and this shows how people don’t even care about family anymore. They are all too caught up in their own little bubbles of technology to care about anything else.

Part 2: Pages 71-91

Focus Questions:

How, and to what extent, will advanced technologies affect the lives of ordinary people? 

Is it inevitable that current social and power structures will be the form of future social organisations?

What the text suggests:

The text suggests that technology is ruling peoples’ lives to the point that the line between reality and fiction is completely blurred. As a result the television shows seem more real than interacting with other people. Once again the text suggests that feeling connected to your inner thoughts is unusual and a threat to society.

The text suggests that the social power structures we have today will still form the future of social organisations but that the power of government and media is more controlling and evil. It seems that the powerful forces are determined to keep people ignorant and remove any threat of actual real thoughts. People think but only about what they are programmed to think. By doing this the government can keep people quiet and away from any wider world dramas.

How the text presents these ideas:

The idea that people have become overruled by technology is demonstrated when Montag is on the train and the passengers are mesmerised and lulled into a trance by the undertone of advertising.

“The people who had been sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, cone two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice.”

When Montag connects with Faber, a possible threat to society because of his knowledge, Faber states what makes him different. “I don’t talk things, sir,” said Faber. “I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I’m alive.”

When Montag seeks Faber out as someone who might be able to help him make sense of his feelings, Montag explains his frustration.

“Nobody listens anymore. I can’t talk to the walls because they’re yelling at me. I can’t talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it’ll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read.”

It seems as if Montag’s initial meeting with Clarisse woke up a part of him that was curious about the world and his feelings. Since then Montag has questioned everything. He says: “I don’t know. We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I’d burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help.”

As for the power structures in Fahrenheit 451 it does appear that the government, business and the media are the most powerful forces. It seems like these forces are working together to keep the population distracted and occupied by fake happiness.

“I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back. No one missed them. And then the government, seeing how advantageous it was to have people reading only about passionate lips and the fist in the stomach, circled the situation with your fire-eaters.”

 If people had time to stop and think about what was going on maybe that would question what the government was doing.

“We’ve started and won two atomic wars since 1990! Is it because we’re having so much fun at home we’ve forgotten the world? Is it because we’re so rich and the rest of the world’s so poor and we just don’t care if they are? I’ve heard rumours; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true the world works hard and we play?”

Part 1: Pages 41-68

Focus Questions:

How, and to what extent, will advanced technologies affect the lives of ordinary people? 

Will the future be marked by further progress, material or intellectual, or by decline? Why?

What the text suggests:

The text suggests that Mildred, and most likely majority of society, has lost the thirst for knowledge that many people have these days. They do not care about anything and prioritise things that are, in reality, not that important. The text also suggests that by removing important works of literature and also historical texts, that it is possible for those in power to rewrite history. The general public then believe whatever version of history is fed to them by those that control the media they take in. It appears that people have lost sight of what it is in life that brings them natural pleasure and instead are seduced by technology and what it appears to give them without considering any other options.

How the text presents these ideas:

One telling moment that demonstrates these ideas is when Montag and Mildred are discussing how they first met. The relationship between a husband and wife has either become so inconsequential or perhaps the memory has been removed, so that Mildred can no longer even recall how they met.

“’When did we meet? And where?’ ‘When did we meet for what?’ she asked. ‘I mean-originally.’ He knew she must be frowning in the dark. He clarified it. “The first time we ever met, where was it, and when?’ ‘Why it was at-‘ She stopped. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. He was cold ‘can’t you remember?’ ‘It’s been so long.’ ‘Only ten years, only ten!’ “

Another example of how these two focus questions are addressed in the text is again how people react to Clarisse. Montag says: “And Clarisse. You never talked to her. I talked to her. And men like Beatty are afraid of her. I can’t understand it. Why should they be so afraid of someone like her?”

It shows that in the Fahrenheit 451 society that the shunning of technology is seen as freakish. That Clarisse with her connection to nature and her interest in human emotions is a person who is to be feared, an abnormality that needs to be stamped out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 1: Pages 21-40

Focus Question:

How, and to what extent, will advanced technologies affect the lives of ordinary people? 

My Ideas:

I think that in the future technology will not only affect peoples’ lives but it will become their lives. People will be so reliant on it and they will stop going outside, stop socialising and stop using their brains, for both creative and intellectual thinking. Of course there will most likely be positive aspects of technology advancing such as for medical and educational purposes, however it may block peoples’ imaginations and creativity.

What The Text Suggests:

The text shows that technology will govern the lives of ordinary people in the future and also that its purpose is to keep people permanently distracted with “entertainment”. The people are all aware that something is not quite right in their society, they aren’t sure what it is but they know that there is something wrong but, they continue being fed this idea of “the perfect world”.

How the text presents these ideas:

Mildred is so excited at the prospect of playing a role in a new TV show that she doesn’t even want to interact with her husband, or anything else for that matter. She puts pressure on Montag to buy a fourth wall screen even though the third one was expensive and put in only a few months earlier. This demonstrates her lust for material wealth, and also the need to have the latest things so she will never be truly satisfied as technology will continue to advance and upgrades are always going to be available.  

In contrast to this, Clarisse is in the care of a psychiatrist as society deems her behaviour abnormal. “The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forest and watch the birds and collect butterflies.”  She also says “They want to know what I do with my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won’t tell them what. I’ve got them running.” What this demonstrates is that what is considered normal in their society is to be permanently distracted and that being alone with your thoughts makes you “crazy”.

Part 1: Pages 1-20

Focus Question:

Will the future be marked by further progress, material or intellectual, or by decline? Why?

My Ideas:

I think technology will continue to advance and gadgets and devices will become more complex and smarter but, peoples’ intellect will not. In the future we will see people relying on technology and not actually using their brains. We can see this starting in today’s society, people use calculators to work out simple maths equations and they are also not making any effort to remember anything, relying on searching instead of memory.

What The Text Suggests:

The people in the novel are completely unaware of what the world used to be like; the books are full of things about the way the world used to be so they are essentially burning history.  People also don’t know how they actually feel; they take pills to keep themselves happy and lozenges to make them sleep. By doing this they are denying and losing touch with their natural functions. When talking to Montag, Clarisse asks him a series of simple questions and he gives her simple answers. He does not stop to think about what she has asked, he just answers automatically. It is like his responses have been programmed in to his brain.

 How the text presents these ideas:

“[I]n 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.” This shows that, even when “sleeping”, her mind is still wide awake, her brain is still processing so she is in fact not sleeping at all. Mildred is always connected to some form of technology; it could be the TV (parlour walls) or the “seashells”.  Mildred is an example of how advances in technology can actually make people less smart.