What Is The Paradox In Fahrenheit 451

Steven Spielberg once said, “Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.” Both Steven Spielberg and Ray Bradbury noticed the effect technology has on people in their worlds. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 originally as a short story titled “The Fireman” and the Galaxy Science Fiction published it in 1950; he later expanded the story into a novel published in 1953 called Fahrenheit 451. Fahrenheit 451, even though written in anticipation of the future, is applicable today because the advancement of
The hound is seen as alive and yet it is actually not living. “It doesn’t like or dislike. It just ‘functions.’ It’s like a lesson in ballistics- It has a trajectory we decide on for it. It follows through – It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It’s only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity” (Fahrenheit 451, 24). The passage explains how much people do not care for things. The dog is a hunk of parts just as a body is a hunk of parts. Mildred claims she is happy and then overdoses on sleeping pills. “’Hell!’ The operator’s cigarette moved on his lip. ‘We get these cases nine or ten a night! Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built… you don’t need an M.D. case like this, all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour. Look’ – he started for the door – ‘We gotta go… Someone else just jumped off the cap of a pillbox’” (Fahrenheit 451, 13). Through the example the reader can see the dynamic of people’s happiness. It shows that even though people are alive, they are not truly living. People marry out of convenience rather than love. “Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It’s our third marriage each. We’re independent. Be independent, we always said. He said; if I get killed off, you just go right ahead and don’t cry, but get married again, but don’t think of me” (Fahrenheit 451, 91). The evidence shows just how disconnected people are to others. No feelings are shown towards anyone. Through each paradox like the hound, sleeping pills, and marriage, the book reveals how numb the characters are to each other and the world around