wireless headset
“Miniature “Shells” placed tightly in his ears, small thimble-sized radios, and an ocean of electronic sound (music and voices, music and voices) wash in waves on the shores of his waking brain,” the author described. Mildred, the hero’s wife. It is not known exactly how this device is controlled, but through it the hero listens to music, news, entertainment programs and at the same time allows them to fall asleep.
In the book, “Shells” is used as a symbol of the emotional barrier between fireman Montag and his wife, who tries to isolate herself from the world. Over the years, Mildred has come to the point that she has become accustomed to reading the speech of her interlocutor’s lips in order not to stray from the fun for even a moment.
This technology has only become available in the last decade, and some people actually rarely take their headphones out of their ears. When paired with a smartphone, our shells truly give you access to all kinds of content, from music to lectures and podcasts. However, Bradbury did not fully grasp the impact portable microspeakers would have on society. On the one hand, headphones have literally become a method of mentally escaping the world. This conflict is especially acute between parents and their teenage children, who defiantly cover their ears and withdraw from communication. Many people wear them when they are in a depressing atmosphere, whether it is a hospital or a company of unpleasant people. However, wireless headphones (like wired ones) are far from taking the first place as a means of escape: computer games, social networks and TV series are much more popular in this role.
Ubiquitous screens
“And it will be even more interesting when we have a fourth TV wall. […] If we built a fourth wall, this room would no longer be just ours. His wife called out to Montag: “A great variety of extraordinary, interesting people lived in it.” Television is the main entertainment for U.S. residents in “451,” but the devices the author describes are a far cry from the small, potbellied screens of the 1950s. They are flat, close to the wall, and have high resolution and image quality for the context. They are expensive, and each wall costs a third of a firefighter’s annual salary, but people obsessed with consumption buy them anyway.
A large flat TV in 2023 will no longer surprise anyone. Not everyone can afford to buy them, but their cost is clearly less than a third of the annual salary. Bradbury was right about the dominance of television (and its successor, the Internet) in people’s leisure time, and even about obsession and psychological dependence. But in our world, this has nothing to do with screen size – on the contrary, there is a much more pronounced dependence on small portable devices that stay in your hand.
fast driving
“It’s a rare thing like walking these days. Did I tell you that my uncle was arrested again? Yes, because he was walking. Oh, we are such strange people. […] Sometimes it seems to me that those who ride them do not know what grass or flowers are. “They never see them except at high speed,” he continued. “Show them a green spot and they’ll say yes, that’s grass!” Show me the pink, they will say: oh, it’s a rose garden! The white dots are houses and the brown dots are cows. One day my uncle tried to drive on the highway at no more than forty miles per hour. He was arrested and sent to prison for two days. Is not it funny? And it’s sad,” this is how the trips of the future seemed to the writer. In the novel world, the death rate in traffic accidents is very high, and dangerous driving, endangering life, and jumping over poles have become popular sports among the townspeople.
Our cars have really become much faster. In the 1950s, cars couldn’t go faster than 140 km/h (usually much slower), and nowadays 130 km/h is the normal speed limit on the toll highway. However, dangerous driving at high speed is mostly enjoyed by young people, outcasts and other irresponsible people, and a trend away from cars in the city has emerged in the last few decades. Doctors recommend walking more, mayors of large cities emphasize public transport, and cycling is popular in Western Europe.
Live broadcasts and follow-ups
“Our television company is proud to be able to use a helicopter-mounted television camera to follow a mechanical hound that begins to track down. […] If television cameras catch him with their lenses, then in one minute the audience will see twenty million Montags running on the screens – like in the old vaudeville, where cops and criminals are chased and chased, as he has seen thousands of times – “451” criminals (book owners) of the world He put on a show after his capture. The scenes in which a mechanical dog kills a man at the end of a long chase are especially admirable.
Bradbury died in 2012, and he would probably be surprised to learn how right he was. And if the police, as a rule, do not make a show of their work, then live broadcasts from the scene of tragedies, wars and riots have long become commonplace. Even Hamas militants in the recent raid on Israel used body cameras to publicly demonstrate the violence, as do many mass shooters. These images have been viewed tens of millions of times, some with satisfaction, others with anger, but media coverage of the violence in our world is far greater than the novelist could have imagined in the 1950s.
Rejection of books
“The works of the classics have been reduced to a fifteen-minute radio broadcast. […] But there were many whose acquaintance with Hamlet was limited to one page of a short retelling in the collection, boastfully declaring: “Finally you can read all the classics! […] As much as possible in sports, games, entertainment – let a person always be in the crowd, then he does not need to think. Organize more and more new sports, organize, super organize super sports! More picture books. More movies” was the recent history of people in Bradbury’s world.
Once a year, each firefighter is allowed to bring home a book to show his family how stupid and ridiculous everything was in the old days, how books deprive people of peace and drive them crazy. […] Then burn the book on the stove.
– the distinctive feature of the novel was the burning of books.
When the plot begins, the books have already been banned and anything found is forcibly burned by fire crews. Print media is believed to be a source of depressing thoughts and makes life difficult. Television does not allow society to think because only what is shown on the screen today is real and they will not remember it tomorrow. At the same time, people’s life is not like a concentration camp, and a person can buy himself a book if he wants. There are few such people, and firefighters struggle with the supplies they have stored.
Reading summaries has become the norm these days; without this, it is almost impossible to pass the Unified State Exam well, for example. Interestingly, in the 1950s, films seemed to be the antithesis of literature and a prime example of superficiality. In 2023, conservative people can only dream of people watching movies – 5-20 second videos get the most views. Printed books and newspapers have almost been abandoned in favor of online publications, but they too are in crisis. Large texts rarely work, and the type of images with captions – “cards” are becoming increasingly popular.
Life with a bag on your head
“After 1960, we started and won two atomic wars. We’re having so much fun here that we’ve completely forgotten to think about the rest of the world. Isn’t it because we’re so rich that the rest of the world is poor and we don’t care? I heard that people are dying of hunger all over the world. But we are full! I heard the whole world is working hard. But we’re having fun. Isn’t that why they hate us so much? I once heard that everyone hated us. And why? Why? Do you know?.. I don’t know. But maybe these books will open our eyes! Maybe they will at least warn us not to repeat the same terrible mistakes!” – Montag tried to explain to his wife.
The heroes of the novel know almost nothing about the country and the world, except for general statements from television. The country is mobilized, bombers regularly fly over the house and everyone is waiting for the war to begin. But no one thinks about who will fight and for what. At one point, Montag suggested in desperation that he turn to books to avoid the mistakes that led to past wars, but no one listened to the dissenting firefighter.
“There’s no point in burning books if no one reads them.” stated Bradbury in 2000. It can be argued how much our world has become worse due to such changes, but the author cannot deny the accuracy of the prediction. The author not only predicted unimportant technical details, but the general direction of the development of life was correct.