Elora Yott

Ms. Vrentzos

ENG 3UI - 04

June 4th, 2018

Fahrenheit 451, Dystopia Coming True?

A society where the word ‘intellectual’ is used as an expletive may seem like a complete

impossibility for the future, however it is a greater risk than one may think. The novel Fahrenheit 451 by

Ray Bradbury takes place in exactly this kind of world, where humans are unable to formulate thoughts

and ideas containing actual meaning. The characters of the novel mention many factors that lead to their

society’s downfall, including progressively greater violent tendencies of children, extreme technological

advances, media masking real issues, and extremely easily offended minorities. Fahrenheit 451’s unique

dystopian society deprived of any sort of intellectual freedom has already begun to show its presence in

modern human society, mirroring many of the distinct features that influenced the downfall of the novel’s

reality.

One factor that contributes to Fahrenheit 451’s society is the extremely violent tendencies of

children of that world. While Montag and Clarisse are on one of their nighttime walk-and-talks, Montag

inquires about Clarisse’s school life. Clarisse tells Montag something rather disturbing: "Sometimes I'm

ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always used to be that way? My

uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone” (Bradbury 27-28). The way

Clarisse words this passage makes it seem like children shooting and killing each other is a normal

occurrence in their society, as she mentions how six of her friends were shot like it was a typical

conversation topic. Even though it is not as normalized as it is in Fahrenheit 451, violent tendencies of

teenagers in present society are on the rise. An article from CNN states that “We're only 20 weeks into

2018, and there have already been 22 school shootings where someone was hurt or killed. That averages

out to more than 1 shooting a week” (Ahmed, Walker 1). With so many school shootings happening in
2018 alone, despite the fact that the students of the US are protesting for stricter gun laws, the government

is refusing to do anything about it. If this continues, these types of tragic events will very likely become

even more normalized due to their frequent occurrences. Donald Trump, the President of the United

States, has been tweeting about recent school shootings similarly to how somebody would a weather

report. In regards to the shooting in Texas, Trump responded with the tweet “School shooting in Texas.

Early reports not looking good. God bless all!” (Trump). As the years go by, the number of shootings

only increases with no promise of improvement. As stated by another article on Bigthink, “in the 18 years

of this century, we’ve already experienced more gun deaths from mass school shootings than during the

entirety of the last century” (Beres 9). This fact alone makes it more obvious to see how dark of a path

humanity is going down, one that it will continue down until it reaches a point where mass shootings in

schools are considered to be normal, everyday occurances, similar to how they are expressed in

Fahrenheit 451.

Another significant contributor to the downfall of Fahrenheit 451’s society is the rapid advance

of technology that began to replace older, outdated aspects such as books. After Montag steals the Bible

from the burning woman’s home, Captain Beatty goes to Montag’s house to explain the history of why

books became illegal. In this explanation, Beatty distinctively says, “Then, in the twentieth century, speed

up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations, Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag,

the snap ending” (Bradbury 50). The technology in Fahrenheit 451 is notably more advanced than it is in

modern society, as inventions such as the Mechanical Hound, parlour walls, and cars that are able to go

easily faster than 90 miles per hour are prevalent in the novel. However, this does not mean that

technological advances of real-world society are far off. One trend occurring in reality today relating to

the advance of technology is the decrease of the number of bookstores in just the United States alone. A

graph found on Statistica representing the number of bookstores throughout the United States presents

data stating that bookstore numbers have decreased from “38 539 in 2004, to 28 335 in 2012” (Statistica).

Due to technology such as E-readers, Kindles, and tablets, physical books have become old-fashioned in

comparison to what else is available in today’s world. The internet makes it effortless to obtain online
versions of novels in seconds with a quick Google search. Another advance in technology occurring in

today’s world is the manufacturing of robots similar to how the Mechanical Hound is portrayed in the

novel. Montag notes the Hound is able to move at incredibly fast speeds when he says “...which of the

cats or chickens or rats the Hound would seize first. The animals were turned loose. Three seconds later

the game was done…” (Bradbury 23). It may seem unrealistic for human beings to create such a machine

in present time, however this is not the case. Boston Dynamics, a robotics company, has been creating

mechanical animals capable of great feats. One of the company’s robots, WildCat, is capable of moving at

extremely high speeds for a free-running robot. As stated on the companies website, “The WildCat robot

is the fastest free running quadruped robot in the World, running at 32 km/h” (Boston Dynamics 1). This

speed doesn’t nearly seem comparable to the Mechanical Hound of Fahrenheit 451, however as

technology continues to become better and better, the chances of a robotic animal like the Hound being

created is in no way an impossibility. With the technology continuing to progress at such a fast pace, the

seemingly far off technology and the consequences of this progression in Fahrenheit 451 are not as

distant as they seem; as many of the building blocks working up to the novels advancements have already

been put into motion.

Leading on, another contributor to the society expressed in the novel is how the media displayed

in TV parlours is used to distract the majority of citizens from the real problems the world is facing.

Mildred, Montag’s wife is obsessed with the parlour that she owns, and spends all her time watching the

programmes it has to offer. Mildred is near mindless in the novel, and forgets a countless number of life-

experiences, including when she met Montag for the first time. When inquired about this, Mildred is

unable to recall the memory, and simply says “Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you

met your husband r’ wife” (Bradbury 39). Mildred is so consumed by her parlour, that she is completely

oblivious to both what has happened in the world and what is happening. Montag describes the parlour as

“...the impression that someone had turned on a washing machine or sucked you up in a gigantic vacuum.

You drowned in music and pure cacophony” (Bradbury 41). This is the point of the parlour, to render

humans clueless to the events that are occurring around them and their society, to keep them completely
oblivious. This is proven when Beatty tells Montag “Let him forget there is such a thing as war.”

(Bradbury 55). Similarly, media in the real-world is able to heavily mask the populations insight on

actual, everyday issues. An article located on Odyssey states “Recent events that occurred have been

smothered under news of celebrity breakups…” (Fontenot 3). With the majority of news coverage being

moved to internet sources, finding legitimate articles covering real issues with no sugar-coating is

extremely difficult. To highlight this issue, Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino released a

music video laced with numerous metaphors, to his song “This is America”. Throughout the video,

Glover dances around using popular dance moves while chaos erupts in the background of the set. The

first time the video is watched, it is difficult to notice the violence and brutality occuring in the back, as

Glover’s dancing is distracting the viewer from seeing everything. By analyzing the video, it can be

concluded that Glover himself is representing the media, drawing the viewer's attention from the rest of

the chaos. As written on Independent, “A group of kids who dance around Glover represent how the

world consumes social media and entertainment as the world burns around them” (Kaplan 7). With many

intimidating issues occurring in real-time, many media providers find it best for the general population to

become oblivious, similar to how the majority of the population in Fahrenheit 451 acts. With society as it

is known today already following the novel in regards to this issue, entire cities becoming completely

clueless to the world around them is not an unlikely possibility for the future.

The final distinct factor of Fahrenheit 451’s society’s downfall is the fact that many groups of

people are getting extremely offended at simple things, such as a certain book. During the lecture that

Beatty gives to Montag, he mentions “Coloured people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White

people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and

cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book” (Bradbury 54). The minorities of

the novel grew to become offended by simple things such as books, as even people who smoke cigarettes

are sensitive to an informative book about lung cancer. Beatty even says “Don’t step on the toes of the

dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers…” (Bradbury 52). This statement implies that nearly every

minority mentioned, no matter how small it was, are very easily upset by a multitude of varying factors.
In modern society however, the same thing is beginning to happen in regards to easy offence. With

everything being online and social media being used for nearly everything, people’s opinions are

absolutely unavoidable. An article written on LovePanky states “With so many people having access to

argue – through social media mostly – anyone with an opposing opinion is speaking up claiming to be

emotionally traumatized by something insignificant” (Pope 5). The people of today love attention, and

being offended on the internet is one thing that attracts the attention those people crave. In Fahrenheit

451, the government takes it to the extreme of eliminating the cause of the offence to simply make it stop

happening. When Beatty says “Burn it” (Bradbury 54), he is really just explaining the solution that

everybody thinks would solve the issue. This is common in today’s world as well, and has been occurring

since as far back as 2013. A reality TV star, Phil Robertson, known for being on Duck Dynasty was

suspended from the show as a result of expressing his opinion on LGBTQ+ people. An article on

Entertainment Weekly stated that the TV network had “Placed Phil under hiatus from filming” (Hibberd

3). This is a very similar solution to how Fahrenheit 451 tackles the issue, removing the source of

offence. With so many people getting offended in today’s world, and the main solution being to simply

get rid of the source of offence, modern society is certainly following down the same path as Fahrenheit

451. This leads to a future where any minor sources of offence may become entirely illegal.

Reality as it is known today has already begun to follow down the same path as the fictional

society portrayed in Fahrenheit 451. Factors appearing across the world such as increased violence in

children, technology progressing at rapid rates, the media hiding the truth behind unimportant stories, and

minorities taking offence too easily highlight this connection. With these signs becoming more prevalent

as society continues to progress, Fahrenheit 451’s world of intellectual incapabilities will change from

that of fiction, to that of actuality.

 Works Cited

Ahmed, Saeed, and Christina Walker. “There Has Been, on Average, 1 School Shooting Every

Week This Year.” CNN, Cable News Network, 25 May 2018.

Beres, Derek. “School Shootings Skyrocket in 21st Century, Study Shows.” Big Think, Big Think,

23 Apr. 2018.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Ballantine Books, 1981.

Childish Gambino. “Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video)” Online video clip.

Youtube. Youtube, 5 May 2018. Web.

Fontenot, Jena Danelle. “Mass Media Is Distracting Us From The Real Truth.” The Odyssey

Online, 14 Nov. 201.

Hibberd, James. “'Duck Dynasty' Star Suspended for Anti-Gay Comments.” EW.com, Entertainment

Weekly, 18 Dec. 2013, 12:00 PM EST.

Kaplan, Ilana. “All of the Hidden References in Childish Gambino's 'This Is America'.” The

Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 11 May 2018,

“Number of Bookstores in the U.S. 2017 | Statistic.” Statista, June 2013,

Pope, Bella. “Why Is Everyone Easily Offended Nowadays? The Hard Truth Revealed.”

LovePanky,

Trump, Donald (realDonaldTrump). “School shooting in Texas. Early reports not looking good.

God bless all!” May 18th, 8:05 AM. Tweet.

“WildCat.” Boston Dynamics, 2018,