Ray Bradbury's Outlook of the Future in Fahrenheit 451

A detailed Summary of Ray Bradbury's Outlook of the Future in Fahrenheit 451


Ray Bradbury's Outlook of the Future

Just by reading the first few lines of the opening paragraph of Fahrenheit 451, we get the feeling of a dystopia right away. Firemen burning books, instead of putting out fires that start in homes. Who ever heard of that? This is crazy thinking right off the start, yet Bradbury carries us through as if we are travelers to this time and place. We are the unseen eyes that see the cataclysmic events that turn Guy Montag's life upside down. We watch him rise, then fall, then meet with outsiders like himself. We watch, how fugitives are tracked down using a mechanical dog, and how people love to watch the chase on their "off the wall" television sets. Could this be how Bradbury thinks our society is going to turn into? Maybe not as drastic, but maybe the censorship could happen, couldn't it?

Ray Bradbury is compared to Arthur C. Clarke as a "poetic science fiction writer" (Watt). This is so, because Bradbury takes a more elegant path to laying out his dystopia. People in his story are so into the now, and pleasure for the moment, that they forget the morals and ethics they


According to one critic, Fahrenheit 451, "is etched in our minds long after we've finished the book" (Schellenberg), is a fairly accurate remark on the book. After you put down the book, you sit and think, what if the world was like that, then I wouldn't be holding this book in my hands to begin with, thereby leaving nobody to warn me of the impending danger of censorship.

We get the feeling in the book, that it is not the government that made this society. That it was the people that did it to themselves by choosing not to read books any more, and choosing to live for superficial happiness. Nobody is going around with a gun to their heads saying, "Do not read books.", but we get the feeling that people fear what is in books. Even if Bradbury chooses not to go into much "political detail" (Watt), the government is basically in control, with people being, in essence, mindless drones or slaves.

came from, because they are clouded by smoke. Take for instance the wall-sized televisions. This became the populace's way of interacting with others with out physically interacting with them. People on TV were you

Some common words found in the essay are:
People TV, Guy Montag's, Outlook Future, Watt Bradbury, Ray Bradbury, TV Bradbury, Arthur Clarke, fahrenheit 451, books bradbury, bradbury trying, books burned, read books, ray bradbury,

Approximate Word count = 759
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

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