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The Positives Of Technology In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

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Most often, people can be seen walking with their heads down, immersed in the technology in front of them, ignoring the whole world. Societies often contain a lot of technology, allowing people to use it in helpful or hurtful ways. Some technology can be lifesaving, but there is also technology that can destroy life in less than a second. Most often, people seem to not understand what technology is doing and how it is impacting their lives. Instead, they are blinded by the few positives of technology that actually hurt the society more than they can recognize. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the society is heavily dependent on technology. Technology has a negative impact on the characters in Fahrenheit 451. People in the society become addicted to the parlor walls, cars go so fast that they don’t see anything outside and the mechanical hound instills fear in people. The characters in Fahrenheit 451 are addicted to the technology that is in their society. One character that exemplifies this technology addiction is Mildred. The technology that she is the most obsessive over is the parlor walls. The parlor walls can best be described as televisions covering all the walls of an entire room. While most parlor walls have four televisions, Montag’s and Mildred’s parlor walls only have three. Mildred questions Montag by saying, “How long do you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall –TV put in? It’s only two-thousand dollars” (20). Montag responds with “That’s one-third of my yearly pay” (20) and is astonished by how naive Mildred is. Mildred is so blindsided by her beloved parlor walls, that she doesn’t even recognize how lazy she is and how hard that Montag works to provide for her. She doesn’t see or understand the bigger picture, she only sees the parlor walls as most important. Mildred expects to get another parlor wall because she is addicted to them. In another statement, she says a rude comment in return to Montag asking, “Will you turn the parlor off?” (49). Mildred responds with, “That’s my family” (49) and doesn’t give it a second thought. Even though Montag and Mildred are married, Mildred says that the parlor walls are her family and implies that they are more of a

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