Fahrenheit 451 Essay

Negative effects of technology
Technology is taking over the city, books are illegal and if they are found they will be burned. In Ray Bradbury’s FAHRENHEIT 451 technology has its upsides but it also poses many problems, if technology is going to continue being a main recourse in this country then it will seem more like a jail more than a city. Technology is restricting people from acting a certain way or preforming different tasks and if someone acts against the law or does something a different way they will be arrested. Technology is used to control people in so many ways. Citizens have become addicted to the technology that they have at their disposal, take the parlor wall for instance. The main character of Bradbury’s novel, Montag, is scared of the mechanical dog so in order to stay on the mechanical dogs good side he does not do anything rash or out of order. Some citizens do not let technology control them but then they are punished for what they do. In the narrative FAHRENHEIT 451 Bradbury gives technology a big role to play and the people focus on the better effects of technology like the snake but the people are overlooking the disadvantages of technology like the parlor wall. The parlor wall is used to brainwash people, once they are addicted to the parlor wall they want to copy the actions they see on the parlor wall. Mildred is one of the many people who are addicted to the parlor wall. Mildred is somewhat brainwashed by the virtual reality people that she watches and interacts with in her living room. Mildred over dosed on pills because she was brainwashed by the parlor wall and after Montag called the emergency hospital and two men extracted all of Mildred’s blood and replaced it with clean healthy blood (Bradbury 13-18). The morning after Montag woke up and saw that Mildred was not there beside him so he panicked and went to see where she was. Montag walked into the kitchen and found here eating, acting as if nothing happened the night before. Montag sat down next to her and she said that her stomach was hurting and she did not know why. Mildred thought that she had attended a party the night before and she said that she felt like she had a hangover. After she was done talking Montag told her that she had overdosed on her sleeping pills and she had passed out and was helped by paramedics. Mildred did not believe one word Montag said, she said that she would never do anything like that. When she was done talking about that she asked Montag when they would get their fourth parlor wall. She said that it will only cost them two thousand dollars but that is one third of Montag’s yearly wage. Then she said that they could do things to get it but they are still paying for the third wall which they got two months ago (Bradbury 18-20). Mildred is not the only person like this though, people do not care what the parlor wall does to them, they do not care if it affects them mentally or physically all they want to do is watch their parlor wall and imitate what they see on it. Watching the parlor wall brainwashes people and takes advantage of them and their money and no one cares if someone physically or mentally hurt themselves while watching the parlor wall.
The mechanical hound had green and blue eyes that flickered, it walked on eight legs as of it was an insect, and he had teeth an inch long that injected its enemies with morphine or procaine. The mechanical hound is used to strike fear into people so that they will follow the rules and will not go out and do something rash or out of order and it is also used to get money. In the novel FAHRENHEIT 451 the firefighters would slide down the fire pole and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let rats, chickens, and cats loose in the fire station and there would be betting to see which animal would be captured first (Bradbury 25). Not only does this show how they are getting money from this but it also shows how dangerous the hound actually is when it attacks. Montag does not participate in these games because years ago he had bet with the best of them and lost a week’s salary and got in a fight with his wife, Mildred (Bradbury 25). These games are not the smartest thing to do though because people could lose all of their money and the hound could easily attack a person and kill them while they are watching. The hound is not so friendly when it is on its normal program either, Montag approached the mechanical beast and said ”hello” and he touched the hounds muzzle which caused the mechanical hound to growl and begin to approach Montag but Montag got away in time (Bradbury 24- 26). In the book Montag says to his captain “I don’t think it likes me” and his captain says “What the hound? Come off it. It doesn’t like or dislike. It just ‘functions’. It’s like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide on for it. It follows through. It targets itself, it homes itself, and cuts off. Its only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity.” Montag later says that the hound can inject people with different fluids that could kill people and he also said that all of the firefighter’s files are on the first floor of the fire station so it would be easy for someone to program the hound to attack a certain one of them (Bradbury 26). If the hound can be programmed to attack a certain person then no one can feel safe around the mechanical beast because it could be programmed to attack them. The reason the hound can restrict people from doing a certain actions is because they fear the hound and do not want to be attack by the vicious machine.
If people ignore the technology of the twenty first century and do things differently than others they will be arrested or even killed for doing so. In the novel FAHRENHEIT 451 it is against the law to have books and if you are caught possessing books you will be arrested and if you refuse to let your books go you will be burned along with the books. In the book the firemen get an alarm and they get to the building and they find out which apartment the person lived in (Bradbury 36-37). Usually the cops would arrive at the scene first and arrest the culprit and take them to jail but this time was different this time the person was still there. When Montag and the rest of the firefighters reached the apartment they saw that an elderly lady was still there. She was told to leave but she refused so the firefighters covered everything with kerosene. They told her to leave again but she refused so Beatty began to count down from ten while Montag begged here to leave, half way through Beatty’s count she said you can stop that and she opened her hand which held a match. All the firefighters backed away except Montag, Montag continued to beg her to leave but she didn’t so she told him to back away so he did. She burned herself with her books (Bradbury 38-39). When they were in their fire truck riding back to the fire station Montag said that the women said something before she had died. Beatty said that he recognised what the women had said, Beatty said that two men who had also burnt themselves alive had said the same thing in 1955 (Bradbury 39-40). If the government continue to try to control people with all of their technology there will be many more deaths and even more arrests.

No good is coming from it only physical and mental damage to people who are being controlled by the government. The government do not care who they harm as long as they follow the rules and do what the government tells them to do. The government will continue to use parlor walls to get people to waste their money and brainwash them to act a certain way. The government will use mechanical bots to strike fear into citizens of the city and use it to acquire money. The government will not let anyone get in the way of what they want so if you do not follow the rules you will be punished for it. The government will do whatever they want to get whatever they want.