Dystopian Society In Fahrenheit 451

What if there was a society where people didn’t have freedom and rights or if they tried to hide their feelings and pretend everything is positive? Is our society close to that now or is our society much different from that description? In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the citizens don’t have rights we have today. The people try to hide their feelings and only care about themselves. This describes our society a little because people are still fighting for rights and there is crime wherever you go. The dystopian society in Fahrenheit 451 is much like and different from our society today.
In the novel, the people act dull and in unison. Even their houses have “no front porches… they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches” (pg. #). The
government removed anything that made someone stand out to prevent individuality. Along with the porches being taken away, books were exterminated as well. Books were thought to make one smarter and stronger than the others. “It’s fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn ‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes. That’s our official slogan” (pg. 6). They think that if someone stops to think, then they will be unhappy. They keep the people moving to prevent that from happening. In our society today, we have freedoms but we do have laws against our actions. In the First Amendment, people are allowed to say what they want and speak their minds without being punished. Unlike the dystopia in Fahrenheit 451, our society allows people to express their opinions. However, in our society, citizens have laws against things they may do. There are restrictions to the citizen’s rights which is similar to the situation in Fahrenheit 451. They give the firemen privileges of letting them accidentally take books home, but they put a law down so the firemen don’t get carried away. “We let the fireman keep the book twenty-four hours. If he hasn’t burned it by then, we simply come burn it for him” (pg. 59). Clearly, society today has different and similar features from the one in Fahrenheit 451 as to what freedoms the people do and don’t have.
In Fahrenheit 451, the people try to replace their feelings with happiness.
In the book, Beatty says, “People want to be happy, isn’t that right… I want to be happy, people say… Don’t we keep them moving…” (pg. 56). He thinks that if people keep moving, they won’t have time to think about their problems. Along with hiding their feelings, people are very selfish. An example of greed is Mildred who wants a fourth TV so she can live up to everyone else’s standards. “How long 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.’ ‘That’s one-third of my yearly pay.’ ‘It’s only two thousand dollars,’ she replied. ‘And I should think you’d consider me sometimes’” (pg. 18). Mildred expects Montag to pay for the TV, even though it costs so much money. In our society, people don’t always pretend to be joyful. There is violence everywhere and crime everywhere. If people were happy, there would be no pain and suffering, but there is. On the other hand, our society is like the one in Fahrenheit 451 because we too are self- involved. People only spend time on their phones or computers or TVs. People never spend time with each other but instead find value in their virtual friends. Society today, as one could see, is much like and different from the Fahrenheit 451 dystopia regarding feelings and emotions.
The dystopian society has many laws that some would consider abnormal because they live in a free country. In Montag’s
dystopia, everyone covers their feelings while in our society, there is violence. In summary, many ideals of a utopia are different between each society and no utopias could ever be the same.