Themes in Fahrenheit 451.

The Science Fiction novel “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury uses themes, motifs and symbols to reflect the journey of humanity’s revival in an oppressed dystopian society overruled by technology. The author uses these literary devices in order to build a looking glass into the positive renewal of this society. 

Additionally, Bradbury wants to make the reader´s experience amazing; so, in order to achieve this purpose, he uses themes, symbols and motifs to enrich his audience´s reading.
Images from a specific theme are going to be analyzed through "The big 5"; a technique that evaluates all kinds of texts in a very effective way:

1.       Audience / purpose - Whom does the text target? What does the author wish to achieve through the text?
2.       Content / theme - What is literally ‘happening’ in the text? What is it about? What are the main ideas of the text?
3.       Tone / mood - How does the text make you and/or the target audience feel? Describe the atmosphere of the text.
4.       Stylistic devices - How does the author use language to convey a sentiment or message? What kinds of linguistic tools does he/she employ?
5.       Structure - How is the text organized, literally (i.e. layout/formatting)? What kinds of structural elements of a particular text type do you see?

Themes:

According to Spark notes, "Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work". In other words, themes are the "big ideas" of a book, novel, play, etc.

One of the most important themes in the novel is the continuous, irrepressible and unstoppable addiction that the majority of Fahrenheit 451´s population shows to the mass media.

Much part of the book is devoted to depicting a dystopic and futuristic American society struggling constant bombardings with fully-colored messages, imagery and propaganda by an omnipresent Mass Media. Instead of the black-and-white TV screens common in the United States´ households in 1953*, the characters in the novel squander and waste their life in front of the "TV parlors" instead of studding, reading or getting cultured, learned and educated. This XXIV century society spends more than three fourths of the day with their gigantic screens; or, as they call them, their relatives. As a result of spending practically all the day with these distractors instead of being with their children and/or spouse, people started to think that the TV parlors were their brand-new family, as they joked and "loved"** each other. 

A TV Parlor.

In TV parlors, scenes changed rapidly and images flashed quickly in bright colors; producing distraction and fascination among the population. Moreover, many of the TV shows and serials presented (Also available for children), encouraged violence and murders; so, in this way, most of the adults and teenagers were "impulsed" by the force of media, to behave violently and trust the government´s policies blindly as a result of propaganda.

When not in their interactive TV rooms, many characters, including Guy Montag's wife Mildred, spend much of their time with "Seashell ear thimbles" in their ears—miniature radio receivers that play constant broadcasts of news, advertisements, and music, drowning out the real sounds of the world and promoting censorship and manipulation of information from the governmental system.

Moreover, mass media has a huge effect on our consumerist need. In page 18, Mildred stays that she is willing for Montag to buy her a fourth TV parlor despite they had just bought the third. In this way, Mildred, the representation of a weak and manipulable society, is always exposed to tons of propaganda and TV shows that corrupt herself and her thoughts.

In Fahrenehit´s society, people believe that happiness lays on the mass media, the seashell radios and the TV shows they watch. However, this is not certainly true. The real role of propaganda and electronic entertainment is to distract people from the problems that afflict and beset society and, also, to restrict the thoughts and human reasoning. In this way, people are not happy; because, as many philosophers said, happiness lays on finding the real truth of life; and truth is, actually, found in knowledge and books, not in distractive mass media.

The big 5 applied to the theme: "Mass media":

1. Audience / purpose (Whom does the text target? What does the author wish to achieve through the text?): It is seen that the four images explain the influence of the mass media on the human being. Through them, it can be understood that propaganda and electronic distractions encourage censorship, manipulation of information, consumerism, lack of knowledge, hedonism and suppression of personal thoughts and ideas. In the book, mass media is the complete antagonist of books; and, if books are burnt in order to "open the path" to technology, then, all of the aspects mentioned above would be intensified, limiting people´s thoughts and the burying of the most reliable and truthful source of wisdom and knowledge: books. For example, in image 1, the author sends a desperate sign to all the people related or interested in learning through books and in the exercise of the individual reasoning; in order, for them, to turn off the mass media; but it also recalls that if action is not taken, then the system would take advantage of them in the most unexpected moment and forbid to everybody the knowledge as it would represent a threat. In the second one, the artist of the image shows that, in Fahrenheit 451, media made people think in the particular way it wanted to mold the society; in this way, it gives the population the instruments to make them think as the governmental system wants society to think; in other words, its purpose is to criticize subjugation and media influence. The third one aims to show how, without books, our minds, that have to be full with something, start to satiate its emptiness with mundane and worldly products commercialized and promoted by propaganda and enterprises; in this way, it criticizes the consumerism as an escape from knowledge condensed in books. And, the fourth one, shows how media can be injected to us through a "needle" (Metaphor) and make us think as it wants to. Moreover, its purpose is to criticize media influence as it censors the individual thought. 

The author wants to target all people, mainly adults and grown-ups, that want to "close the doors" to mass media influence, and are scared about the fact that  the truth condensed in books, the source of consciousness, can be burnt at any moment. The text also targets all those who want to prevent book and knowledge-burning to our society and promote education and enlightenment and reading.

2. Content / theme -(What is literally ‘happening’ in the text? What is it about? What are the main ideas of the text?). The main idea of the four texts is to show discomfort or displeasure with awareness of the negative effects of media on society, they aim to criticize it and, in that way, gain followers for the pro-book and intellectual movement.

The first image communicates that it is important to read and get learned and cultured instead of watching TV or surfing in the web. These, because, if the government starts to manipulate society, then the most valuable aspect of the human being, its reasoning, would be lost, as a result of censorship to individual thoughts. It reflects the author´s concern for the prevention of censorship and manipulation. The second one, aims to criticize how addicted and corrupted to mass media society is (Which is shown in the man´s face), and how people believe that the most important aspect of life is to waste it with media. While a person is "satisfied" (He/She isn´t, as it is just a perception or illusion) with media, this last one starts to mold him/her, giving them their dairy "technological food" that would result, in a small period of time, in a manipulation of the personal reasoning and ideas as media starts to mold people the way it wants. In the image, a media-addicted man is getting his daily technological food ration, like if he was a dog depending on his owner, master or mistress (Media). The third one, shows how the mind of a person starts to get plenty of worldliness, because of consumerism, instead of being satiated with thoughts and reasoning. It is deduced that people are manipulated throw propaganda and advertisements in order, for them, to buy products that, maybe, the don´t need but buy to fulfill the empty potholes that are in their lives, caused by an absence of reasoning. The last one, shows how a human being is being injected with a needle of mass media that would make him change radically his thoughts about the government, TV shows, daily situations, among others. It shows how mass media changes one´s brain.

Generally, the four images show how people prefer to be ignorant and feel empty of knowledge instead of being cultured, learned, intelligent, and questioning themselves about life. In a deeper sense, it shows how people are easily-directed by the government as it is a "piece of cake" to control one-minded people and convince them, through mass media, to burn books, the only source of free-thinking and multiple-mindedness which is available to them.  

3. Tone/mood - (How does the text make you and/or the target audience feel? Describe the atmosphere of the text): The four images present different tones; but, mainly, they all make the audience feel caged from the individual thought as, before the screen, there is someone or something thinking for them. The first image, shows an anxious and preoccupied tone because it is, practically, begging to a person to turn off their media before it starts to become illegal to do it. It encourages the viewers to read books and think before the time of totalitarian control arrives. This image makes me reconsider all the time that kids, teenagers and adults spend before their screens, preventing themselves from learning as they prefer to be entertained. It also scares me a little bit as I don´t want to have my mind controlled by a totalitarian government were books are destroyed in order to be buried in time. The second image has a critical tone as it judges the negative influence of media on society and how the "technological food ration" damages our minds and individual thoughts. In my opinion, I feel that if the XXI century society, including me, doesn´t reduce the time they spend in their "TV parlors", then we will end wrapped-up in a totalitarian and controller government were free thought isn´t allowed. Because of this, I feel that if we don´t take action, our society, in a small time-lapse, will collapse into a government not ruled by people, but by the mass media. The third one, as well as the fourth one, also shows a critical mood because it judges our continuing media-fating and influenced minds. For me, it is sad and melancholic that, because of manipulation, our society is leaving encyclopedias and books aside as they are guided by pleasure and a hedonistic ethic.

4. Stylistic devices (How does the author use language to convey a sentiment or message? What kinds of linguistic tools does he/she employ?) In the first image, the author shows a muted or dull TV were the text "Turn it off while it is still legal" lays in the center. As the author aims his/her audience to read, instead of using mass media, he/she puts a turned-off-TV to encourage this aim. In the second picture, the author shows a man with a bib and a TV with a spoon as if it was his mother. He is willing to receive his daily, technological food ration from his "mother" that always is with him and "takes care of him". In the third one, the author uses lots of colorful things in the man´s brain that show how the appealing and well-looking stuff catches our attention. The artist of the image also uses a fat man to show how media has influenced him to buy and acquire "stuff" that makes him more mundane and less intellectual. Finally, the fourth image, is in a black cover were the needle, full of advertisements, propaganda, violence and catching colors, contrasts with the cover. This, makes the needle highlight in the image, as it is the most important part to be shown in it and how its injection affects the human brain.

A blue-point (Image 3) in all the darkness of
images 1 and 2.

5. Structure - (How is the text organized, literally (i.e. layout/formatting)? What kinds of structural elements of a particular text type do you see?): All of the images analyzed have a rectangular layout; however, the first and the second images, for example, don´t use bright colors. In the case of picture number 1, bright colors are not intended to be used because, as it consists on a turned-off TV, a white-empty screen had to be put; but, in the second one, as it is a comic, consisting on a man getting fed by a TV, only black and white colors could be used. However, in the case of image number 3, the bright colors make it look more exalted and that is the way the message, of consumerism, is conveyed, also, it is very well depicted, and, the color and intensity of objects in some places of the brain make it look really intense. Also, it is the only picture that has a non-white cover; so, in this way, it is the one in which people should show more interest as it is the most colorful. Finally, image 4 shows a colorful needle (Because it has all the media inside of it) with a pink-like silhouette of a human body in a black cover. The colorfulness of the needle shows how colors of media, propaganda and advertisements influence our thoughts, ideas and conceptions.