The noises broadcast by the government increases in intensity and violence during the course of the course of the story, paralleling the escalating tragedy of George’s and Hazel’s lives. When the story begins, a buzzer sounds in George’s head as he watches the ballerinas on TV. As he tries to think about the dancers, who are weighed down and masked to counteract their lightness and beauty, the sound of a bottle being smashed with a hammer rings in his ears. When he thinks about his son, he is interrupted by the sound of twenty-one guns firing, an excessively violent noise that foreshadows Harrison’s murder. Thought about the laws of quality and the competition that existed in the old days are shattered by the sound of a siren, a noise that suggest the extent to which the government has literally become the thought police. As harrison barges into the television studio, George hears a car crash, a noise that connotes the injury of multiple people.
