Communication And Technology In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 The 1950’s was a turning point for the United States. Advancements in technology were being made, the economy was booming and a war was occurring. Society was changing dramatically; technology was changing gradually. As the resourceful technology evolved, people became more and more reliant on it and used it more in their daily lives. However, people lived in trepidation due to the cold war that was taking place at the time. Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, wrote the novel in the 1950’s. The novel is written in the way he acknowledged and viewed how society was changing and how he believed it would end up. Bradbury wrote the book to create a dystopian world based on his belief on where society was going. Bradbury’s …show more content…
Bradbury also uses tone and purpose to connect his social commentary on his belief of the situations he saw as where the future was heading. In the novel, Mildred, Montag’s wife, is the model citizen of how technology is taking a negative impact on peoples’ lives and is blocking communication among people. in Fahrenheit 541, Bradbury states, “Wasn’t there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran out to the nearest store and telephoned her to ask what was for dinner? Well, then, why didn’t he buy himself an audio-seashell broadcasting station and talk to his wife late at night, murmur, whisper, shout, scream, yell?” (Bradbury 42). This demonstrates Bradbury using a connotative diction to create a sarcastic tone. With the use of words and ideas such as, “old joke, desperate, telephoned her to ask” the author is saying that people are becoming so reliant on technology that they put that as their priority instead of the real life things around them. Bradbury predicted that society would start ignoring the things happening in real life and start to acknowledge anything having to do with technology first which blocked most interaction among people. In the novel Montag is expressing his feelings to Faber when in reality this was the author, Bradbury, using diction to create a tone that …show more content…
Bradbury also uses tone to create a purpose of implying his beliefs and views on how technologies’ effect on peoples’ lives would put society in the future. In the novel, Faber is explain to Montag the importance of books and why they are hated in their society. Faber tells Montag, “This book has pores. It had features. This book can go under a microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past the infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are” (Bradbury 83). This illustrates how Bradbury uses figurative diction to create a passionate tone. For example the author uses words and ideas such as, “Features, pores, details and life” to arose emotions and emphasize the importance of the little details of life. Bradbury points out throughout the novel that the reason the people hate books is because they bring people to reality and make them ponder on the truth. He emphasized his belief on how society was eventually going to forget about literature because they no longer found it important and they would rely solely on technology. He saw that technology would harm society in many ways that the people wouldn’t realize it themselves because they would be oblivious to negative effects of technology.