An Alien Planet of Fire and Highly Intelligent Stupidity
Where is our world heading? With all this technology and all of our attention being immersed by those monotonous and cruel blue-lit screens, will people ever be able to have time to live a little? To talk to one another? To read? To write? To be happy?
The classic novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, displays an unimaginable future - for all you book-lovers out there - of a world possessed by fire and intelligent stupidity. Yes, this oxymoron is intentional. This dystopian novel revolves around a society where happiness is found by vicariously living through the soap operas displayed on the big screens within one's own home for hours on end. People overdose on medications because they feel nothing throughout their meaningless days, and are revived by hospitals only to continue living the rest of their pathetic lives wanting nothing other than to feel... to actually feel emotions within them.
This world has been created to maintain an equal and dependable community of mindless humans that function on what they are told, believing lies, and living in artificial happiness. People are forced to experience life as the authorities desire.
No one is safe.
People are turned in by their neighbors for possession of literature. Wives turn their backs on husbands and vice versa for finding stashes of books hidden in the house. Friends become foes overnight. Outcasts become your only means of survival. Differences in humanity are discouraged and punished; thus, all pieces of literature, because they offer insight to a world other their this one, are forbidden. Defending your literature could conclude in you signing your death warrant - death by the flames of the written word. If you are not killed for standing your ground, you will surely be murdered by the robotic hounds unleashed unto you, coded to recognize your scent and trained to kill on sight.
Amidst all of this chaos and upside-down system, one man defies all that he has been raised to believe and be. How will he manage to withstand what lies ahead once the authorities discover his betrayal? How will he survive the persecution, pursuit, and unyielding, private eyes watching his every step?
An editorial by Heidi Hammel in the New York Times describes her personal perspective regarding the novel and the realism of this dystopian world: "Ray Bradbury, that lucky poet, wrote 'Fahrenheit 451' in 1953, and yet it speaks directly to today. In terms of technology, Bradbury accurately extrapolated, from that era's nascent television culture, something that eerily predicts the Internet: The book imagines a world flooded with information, pouring into citizens' ears and eyes through ear buds and wall-sized flat-panel screens."
Hammel's explanation of the novel shows just how realistic this seemingly unimaginable world may actually be. With the extreme dependence of technology younger generations exhibit and the constant media proclaiming "truths" that are absorbed and believed by the public immediately after publication, our future may morph into Bradbury's prediction and our own worst nightmare.
When reading this book as a literary classics assignment last year, I found myself enthralled by the plot of this grotesque piece. After drifting through the first few pages, uncertain that I would enjoy this particular genre of literature that had been required of me to read, I found myself speeding through the final chapters as the torrent of events, rebellion, deception, survival, and ultimately... wait, I refuse to spoil the ending.... unravel. With such conviction, as if a rock concert declaring their final song with whatever smoke, fireworks, streamers, and deafening amplifiers they have left, Bradbury is able to make book lovers, cringing and wincing from chapter one, stand aghast and mouths agape at the final page of this novel.
Though literary classics tend to hold a bad wrap for their prim and proper characters, sometimes old English writing styles, and "outdated" (by younger generations' standards) plots, this novel will have you sitting on the edge of your seat astounded by just how far a futuristic world will go to keep their people in the dark.
The classic novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, displays an unimaginable future - for all you book-lovers out there - of a world possessed by fire and intelligent stupidity. Yes, this oxymoron is intentional. This dystopian novel revolves around a society where happiness is found by vicariously living through the soap operas displayed on the big screens within one's own home for hours on end. People overdose on medications because they feel nothing throughout their meaningless days, and are revived by hospitals only to continue living the rest of their pathetic lives wanting nothing other than to feel... to actually feel emotions within them.
This world has been created to maintain an equal and dependable community of mindless humans that function on what they are told, believing lies, and living in artificial happiness. People are forced to experience life as the authorities desire.
No one is safe.
People are turned in by their neighbors for possession of literature. Wives turn their backs on husbands and vice versa for finding stashes of books hidden in the house. Friends become foes overnight. Outcasts become your only means of survival. Differences in humanity are discouraged and punished; thus, all pieces of literature, because they offer insight to a world other their this one, are forbidden. Defending your literature could conclude in you signing your death warrant - death by the flames of the written word. If you are not killed for standing your ground, you will surely be murdered by the robotic hounds unleashed unto you, coded to recognize your scent and trained to kill on sight.
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| Image provided by Geoffrey Fairchild. |
An editorial by Heidi Hammel in the New York Times describes her personal perspective regarding the novel and the realism of this dystopian world: "Ray Bradbury, that lucky poet, wrote 'Fahrenheit 451' in 1953, and yet it speaks directly to today. In terms of technology, Bradbury accurately extrapolated, from that era's nascent television culture, something that eerily predicts the Internet: The book imagines a world flooded with information, pouring into citizens' ears and eyes through ear buds and wall-sized flat-panel screens."
Hammel's explanation of the novel shows just how realistic this seemingly unimaginable world may actually be. With the extreme dependence of technology younger generations exhibit and the constant media proclaiming "truths" that are absorbed and believed by the public immediately after publication, our future may morph into Bradbury's prediction and our own worst nightmare.
When reading this book as a literary classics assignment last year, I found myself enthralled by the plot of this grotesque piece. After drifting through the first few pages, uncertain that I would enjoy this particular genre of literature that had been required of me to read, I found myself speeding through the final chapters as the torrent of events, rebellion, deception, survival, and ultimately... wait, I refuse to spoil the ending.... unravel. With such conviction, as if a rock concert declaring their final song with whatever smoke, fireworks, streamers, and deafening amplifiers they have left, Bradbury is able to make book lovers, cringing and wincing from chapter one, stand aghast and mouths agape at the final page of this novel.
 |
| Image provided by Matt & Megan. |
Though literary classics tend to hold a bad wrap for their prim and proper characters, sometimes old English writing styles, and "outdated" (by younger generations' standards) plots, this novel will have you sitting on the edge of your seat astounded by just how far a futuristic world will go to keep their people in the dark.
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