The reality of Bradbury's vision of the future

Bradbury’s vision of the future in his novel Fahrenheit 451 is quite similar to what has actually transpired today. Bradbury saw the rise of different types of entertainment such as television and radio. Bradbury thought that the presence of all of the fast cars, advertisements and loud music created an existence with too much “action” where there is hardly even any time to think or concentrate. This I feel is definitely an issue in our time. Technology is very overwhelming! Sometimes I’m in my room and I have the TV on, then I get on my computer and have the IM sounds going, and then I’ll decide to watch a video on YouTube, while the TV is still running in the background. It’s like we go from one form of technology to the next, we are constantly “watching” or “hearing” something. It drives me crazy when I have all of this going on at the same time and I have to pause and turn everything off. Somehow we are always being technologically stimulated in some way or another.

Also, an idea I felt that was mentioned in the book was the idea of nature and purity. Clarisse represents this “purity” with her innocence and her love or nature. She tells Montag to taste the rain, which is when he begins to connect with nature. When he leaves the city and goes to the country, he experiences nature first hand. This caught my attention because I sometimes feel the same way. Especially today, no matter what big city we visit, it becomes so crowded and loud. A perfect example of this is Times Square- you walk down the streets with music coming from different stores, TV screens on buildings with ridiculous glowing advertisements, loud cars, etc. This is how our “modern” cities are now. When you go somewhere quiet, for example, when I go to visit my father’s family in Germany, in a little town called Radbruch (which is about 30 minutes from the city Hamburg), I can RELAX. My grandparents hardly watch TV, do not even have an internet connection or a computer and as much as I go through withdrawal after a couple of weeks, it’s very nice at the same time. I take my bike to go to the market, while I pass a field of cows and horses and it’s just extremely peaceful compared to New York. I feel like our modern society is obsessed with technology and ignores nature completely. So, sometimes it’s nice to get away from all of that.

It’s interesting because Clarisse is an outcast from society because of her strange habits, which are for example hiking or playing with flowers but she and her family seem pretty happy with themselves and each other. In contrast to Clarisse, there is Guy’s wife Mildred, who I think represents technology itself. She is very cold, distant, emotionless and also sort of “mysterious”. I think Bradbury portrays Mildred this way because he is trying to prove the point that technology sometimes “disconnects” us from who we really are. Mildred would rather watch TV than talk to her own husband. This also caught my attention because I feel that nowadays families act completely different because of technology. I can’t speak about my own house hold because my Puerto Rican mother and German father raised me very “traditionally”, but when I would visit my friends’ houses, families would not even eat together or sometimes would eat while watching television- without having a conversation amongst each other. There was a sort of disconnect in the family; in the past when there was no television, families would sit together, talk about their day went, etc. but nowadays it’s like we NEED to watch TV, or we NEED to hear or see something that is not “ourselves” for stimulation, if that makes any sense. Maybe it’s because there’s always so much variety and entertainment on TV that we can’t get in our own family? I don’t know.

I know I just went on and on about what Bradbury did correctly foresee for the future because I do see a lot of similarities between his future and the actual future. The only thing that was a little exaggerated of course was the whole idea of the burning of the books. I do agree that there is a general lack of interest in reading nowadays but I don’t think reading will ever be completely forgotten or frowned upon. A lot of people still read and for those who are too lazy to read or buy a book, there are ways to do it digitally. Even though the way in which we read has changed, we are still reading: Newspaper articles online, eBooks, websites, etc. We are still reading this information and learning no matter what, even though the “form” has changed. Also, I feel like schools and colleges are still encouraging their students to read, and also require them to read for homework or even in class. So, I don’t really think we need to worry about entertainment and technology completely taking over books … at least not yet :) .