Fahrenheit 451

The Parlor’s Effect on Us “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book,”(Groucho Marx).Everyone in Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451,is dependent on technology, and this plays a huge part in Guy Montag’s life, along with everyone around him In the fireman’s life he keeps hearing people refer to the characters on the television as their family. Guy also sees the parlor letting people’s lives run past them.Along with the parlor, Bradbury illustrates many exciting pieces technology that is used today in everyday life. The characters in the novel need these distractions, they need the fake family because real families fight and have flaws and their world, the real world is not good enough to look at so they look at a fake world one on their television screen.. In Montag’s life people keep calling the people on the screen their family. While Guy is trying to talk to Millie after Beatty came and talked to the pair about books for the first time Guys asks Millie,”Will you turn the parlor off?’`That’s my family”(69). While Guy is trying to have a real conversation with his wife she will not talk to her real family, but wants to go sit with her family on the screen. While some of Mildred’s friends visiting they answer Montag’s question about their children: ”I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten....it’s not bad at all, You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch.It’s like washing clothes; stuff laundry

in and slam the lid”(92-93). It is normal to leave you children with family, if you need to go pick up some groceries just leave the kids with grandma, and to these people the parlor is family so its not so bad they toss their children into a room filled with family. However, referring to your own children as dirty laundry seems cold and heartless. In conclusion, the parlor families these people have adopted make them unloving and not needing to think or really