Fahrenheit 451: Question 5

This book does not have that much historic signifigance, mostly because it is set in the future and one that is very different from our own, so I guess the option of history is out of the question. There are a few things in the book that would qualify as social issues that could reflect on today’s world, but not the world in history.

The only social issue in Fahrenheit 451 is about how the people in the future are very anti-social, even by today’s standards. Many people, like Guy Montag’s wife, Mildred, wear these “Seashells” in their ear and they hear the news and they hear music and ratio shows. This reminds me an awful lot of the iPod® earphones that many people today wear around and do not talk to one another. Another thing that is starting to happen today is that people are getting way too attached to their T.V.’s. Back in Bradbury’s day, T.V.’s were just coming out really and he could see that people were starting to get more and more obsessed with their televisions and spent less time outside. The part about the televisions being as big as walls have definitely already come true, and so has the part where they are three dimensional, which would have been a radical thought back in the 1950’s. The part about the televisions in the book being interactive with the viewer is about the equivalent to most modern video games because the viewer can just sit there and whatever they want to happen happens, and some have even started to have voice recognition software so the player can control what goes on with their voice as well as with their controllers.

The thing that Bradbury seems most worried about is that people would still act social, talk and be in the same room, but they would not really be talking about anything substantial. Clarisse points this out when she says “Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what? People don’t talk about anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else” (Bradbury 31).

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. Print.