Fahrenheit 451: A Tale of What is to Come? - Hayden Budofsky

         For the literary criticism book chat project that we all recently completed, I chose Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I had been wanting to read it for a while, and after going through a brief synopsis online, I felt that it would be a perfect choice for the Marxist criticism lens. I really had no expectations going into the reading, but when I came out, it actually ended up changing my mind about the modern world. Through a gut-wrenching tale of dystopian America, this novel surely got me thinking about what was to come in our future.
   
        First, a short summary for context. Fahrenheit 451 is set in a highly advanced, not so distant America, where the government has a very strict grasp on society. In this world, all people have been banned from reading, buying, or even owning books. Firemen are tasked with finding anybody who has books of any kind and burning them along with their house. Those who dare to defy the law are sentenced to life in prison or are brought to insane asylums depending on the situation. The actual story follows a fireman named Guy Montag who slowly becomes fed-up with his job. A young girl named Clarisse and an older man named Fabor are able to convince him of the good in literature, and actually get him to read what he has always been taught to despise. Montag ends up having to grapple between his job and the watchful eye of the chief fireman, and his desire to drop everything and follow the advice of his newfound friends.
     
      There are two main ideas that I was able to take out of this novel. One was the conflict between ignorance and knowledge. The reader is given the question of whether knowledge provides happiness or if ignorance truly bliss. In this novel's established setting, Montag must fight against a society that embraces and celebrates ignorance to no end. And through the help of knowledgeable people such as Clarisse or Fabor, he begins to understand his life would be more complete if he didn't accept the status quo. My other takeaway from this book was its world's massive presence of highly advanced technology. Some examples include television screens that take up entire walls, medicine that can cure any accident or disease instantly, radios that can be inserted into the ear (something we already have technically), and a highway system that allows people to drive up to 200 miles per hour. Technology utterly dominates this society and serves as one of the many contributors to this widespread ignorance and fear of knowledge.
   
      At the time this book was written, which was in 1953, Ray Bradbury clearly saw what was happening in the world and wanted to write a novel that warned of what the future may hold for us. Yet 67 years later, has our world actually come to this reality? Well, technology sure has advanced exponentially and is very hard to escape for the everyday individual. Reading has also arguably become much less popular with the younger generations as many opt towards tv and video games instead. Although these current trends may point to some things, I generally believe that our future will not look like what Bradbury described. Knowledge is a powerful thing and people (including myself) still crave it. Even as technology continues to advance, I can't imagine a close future where every single person is ignorant and the government has complete control over our lives. Although that doesn't mean it is still possible.
   
      In all, Fahrenheit 451 definitely made me more aware of the stability of our world. With a gripping story and a stark outlook on the future, it was one of the rare experiences that really made me think about what could be in store for us in the coming years.