Examples Of Dehumanization In Fahrenheit 451

Fire! It is hard to imagine firemen starting fires instead of putting them out. Yet that is what occurs in Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451. Writing in 1954, Bradbury warns readers about a future that could happen. Bradbury notices dehumanization in society as technology makes people become less personable and less capable of independent thought. Bradbury observes that the more addicted people become to technology, the less they socialize and the less they care about other people. Much of the dehumanization that occurs in Fahrenheit 451 has actually come to be true in the beginning of the 21st century. Much like the Pixar movie Wall-E, in which the inhabitants of Earth have to evacuate due to ignoring dangers of pollution till the point …show more content…
In Fahrenheit 451, Montag’s wife, Mildred, has a severe attachment to her different forms of entertainment. Her “relatives” on the parlor walls is particularly concerning to Montag. When Montag begins to feel afflicted and is disturbed by the noise of the relatives, he asks if she would turn them off for him. She responds saying “That's my family,” (Bradbury 46) and struggling with Montag about them. Eventually she caves and says she will turn them down, but instead she simply “Went out of the room and did nothing to the parlor and came back,” (Bradbury, 46). She chooses her family on her television screen over interactions with her own husband, a living breathing person. If they weren’t married, she may not have even pretended to do anything, instead choosing to ignore him completely. There is a similar situation occurring in the world of Wall-E. The humans of Wall-E are not like those of today. The lack of exercise, which was permitted by the hovering chairs that they sat on all day since childhood, has left them out of shape and has even changed their bone structure. The most distressing effect of these chairs, however, is how they prohibit communication. During the film, there is a scene in which two people are shown having a discussion with each other over their screens. They do not realize during this conversation that they happen to be floating right next to each other. Rather than having an organic face to face discussion, the two characters stay in the exact same position, not looking directly at each other or enjoying each other’s presence. They allow their screens to exert all effort for them. To boot, they have different distractions happening on their screens while talking to each other, so they do not even bother to give the other their full attention. The technology available to them allows inhabitants of the Axiom to multitask too much,