The Mirror of Technology
Reliance on technology can be detrimental to people’s daily lives. In his novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury confronts a naive society’s use of technology through allusion. He does this to suggest that when manipulative technology controls a dystopian society, it may change or harm humanity in ways unforeseen by its designers. Bradbury introduces a corrupt society, unawarely abiding to censorship and artifice, restricted from reading illegal books that are burned by enforcing firefighters. The public fears the unjust ideas of illegal books and are ignorant to the world around them, such as the war occurring outside of their mesmerizing parlor walls.
Undoubtedly, the heinous Captain Beatty, a fireman, resorts to two key resources of technology to enhance destructiveness throughout the novel. Captain Beatty uses the nozzle of the eradicative fire hose to “bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history” with the “venomous kerosene” that starts lovely fires. Although Beatty has the “pleasure to burn,” he is fairly intelligent since he knows about the forbidden text from different pieces of literature, such as the Little Black Sambo, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, when he argues to the rebellious Guy Montag that contradicting books cause abhorrence with the contents of power and control inside. Bradbury’s allusions to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel that racially stereotypes black people and gained controversy from the public, associate to a story on a man, Uncle Tom, that describes his experience as a slave who questions the meaning of freedom.
His significance in referring to this piece compares the qualities of books and slaves to each other, treated cruelly and unwelcome to mankind. Bradbury also alludes to the Little Black Sambo, which refers to a story of a South Indian boy, Sambo, who just got new colorful clothes, but he stumbles upon four tigers that threaten to eat him if he doesn’t hand over his precious clothing. Eventually, the boy escapes while the other arrogant tigers fight each other due to jealousy. This connects to Montag’s rebellion, starting when Beatty sends a ferocious Mechanical Hound to Montag’s house as a warning to sniff out the books, evoking fear within the community to prevent people from reading any books. The Mechanical Hound alludes to Cerberus the three-headed dog, guarding the gates of the Underworld, to restrict Montag from any knowledge of the real world.
While Montag tries to escape from it, his brutal chase is televised by the parlor walls of the attentive town; although the “Mechanical Hound [never] fails,” Montag escapes successfully and the government resorts to “a scapegoat to end things with a bang” to avenge his wrongful crime against society. Bradbury shows a destructive nature in the Hound since it “never misses a bulls-eye” when tracking down the target. However, it is arguable that the people who control it are ruinous through the piece of technology because the Hound’s program has failed its intended purpose in keeping incongruous ideas from being released. Instead, they feed lies to the public to assure justification that this unforeseen circumstance has been solved.
Having the audience fooled into thinking Montag is dead, Bradbury justifies that the power of technology contributes with mankind’s tendency to rely on empathy for those who depend on mechanical objects to eliminate their problems, such as books, and ignore serious complications occurring in other parts of the world. Although they abide to this compulsive technology, Bradbury evokes a sympathetic tone toward the people in this restricted society since they are blinded by the parlor walls, forced to disown any thoughts on reading books to lessen risk on losing their own families in the wall. Therefore, Ray Bradbury conveys that when technology manipulates an ignorant society, it may change or harm humanity with the lack of resistance from the people.
