Technology can have its benefits but it can cause a wall between people that destroys meaningful relationships and creates a society that is single minded with no independent thought but change is possible if people are courageous enough to stand up for their beliefs.
Technology is something that has dramatically advanced in the past 100 years and has a lot of benefits in places like medicine but Bradbury was able to highlight a major concern in the idea of technology in that it will take over the lives of some people and destroy meaningful relationships. In Fahrenheit 451 this is seen in the relationship between Guy Montag and his wife Mildred which was slowly deteriorating because of the addiction Mildred had with technology like television. Mildred is very obsessed with television and has gone to the extremes of calling the actors on the television her ‘Aunt and Uncle’ and even when Montag asks Mildred to turn the television off she calls them ‘her family’. This shows how obsessed Mildred really is with the mindless television shows that a shown and leads to the destruction of the relation between …show more content…
In the society of Fahrenheit 451 people are discouraged to have independent thought and individuality. Because there is a law that prohibits the ownership of books, there is a lack of independent thought which leads to having a society that has no individuality. Books are a source of knowledge and are able to stimulate ideas in the reader’s mind which can cause different views on different ideas. This creates a sense of individuality but because of the law to not have any books, the government forces the people to act in the same way. Mildred is a clear example of someone like this in this society as she spends most of her life watching and talking about television which is like most of the other population. A young character from the novel called Clarisse stated that ‘people don 't talk about anything’ and ‘they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else’. What Clarisse said here reinforces the idea that everyone is the same with people acting in the same way. If nobody says anything different from anyone else then we are all seen as the same all talking about the same thing. This creates no individuality in the society as no one has a different view on anything that may go on as they will all just have the same idea. A society that also discourages individuality from another text is the movie