THE VALUES AND TYPE OF THE SOCIETY AS THE
RESULT OF MASS CULTURE AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN
RAY BRADBURY’S
FAHRENHEIT 451
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree ofSarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
NICOLAUS GOGOR SETA DEWA
Student Number: 074214015
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
i
THE VALUES AND TYPE OF THE SOCIETY AS THE
RESULT OF MASS CULTURE AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN
RAY BRADBURY’S
FAHRENHEIT 451
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra
in English Letters
By
NICOLAUS GOGOR SETA DEWA Student Number: 074214015
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
iv
The question, O me! So Sad, recurring – What good
amid these, O me, O life?
Answer
That you are here – that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may
contribute a verse.
vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank God for answering my prayers with guidance, so I can complete this thesis. I am so grateful because You granted all of my wishes and make me a really fortunate person.
My great gratitude goes to Drs. Hirmawan Wijanarka, M. Hum. as my advisor. I thank him for giving me the best support and advice that I really need to finish this thesis, and for lending me some books to support it. I also thank my co-advisor, Modesta Luluk Artika Windrasti, S.S., for the correction and suggestion for this thesis. I also address my special thanks to Dewi Widyastuti, S. Pd., M. Hum. for the Fahrenheit 451 novel that I requested her to buy during her stay abroad.
I thank both my parents, Toto Hedi and Christiana Handari, for their support during my study in Sanata Dharma University so I can do the best I could. For my sister, Raras, thanks for the laughter we had during my hard times.
To my good friends, Robertus Yudha, David Restu Widiyanto, and Brahma Putra Pratama, thank you for the warm friendship. Special thanks to Azizah Nurul Laily for the tireless support, motivation, inspiration, ideas, and times that we had. For my wonderful friends from English Letters, especially the class of 2007, and to all of my friends that I cannot mention one by one, thank you for the experience and good times.
vii
1. Theories of Character and Characterization ……….. 8
2. Theory of Setting……… 11
viii
c. Captain Beatty ……….. 37
B. The Setting of Fahrenheit 451………. 39
1. Technology as a Vital Instrument ……… 39
2. Laws and Law Enforcers ………. 41
a. The Laws ………. 41
b. Police and Firemen as the Law Enforcers ……… 43
3. Daily Manner of the People ……….. 45
a. Pleasure Seeking and Ignorance ……….. 45
b. Distant Relationships ………. 47
C. Mass Culture and Social Control Affecting the Values and Type of the Society in Fahrenheit 451 ………. 48
1. Mass Culture in Fahrenheit 451 ……….. 50
2. Social Control in Fahrenheit 451 ……… 56
3. The Values and Type of Society in Fahrenheit 451 ……… 60
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ……… 65
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 69
APPENDIX ... 71
ix ABSTRACT
NICOLAUS GOGOR SETA DEWA. The Values and Type of the Society as the Result of Mass Culture and Social Control in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University, 2011.
Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about censorship, mass culture, repression and their effects to the society. This study shows how mass culture and social control influence the values and type of the society in Fahrenheit 451.
This study has three problems to be answered. The first problem is how the characters are described. The second problem is how the setting is described. The third problem is how the values and type of the society in Fahrenheit 451 as the result of mass culture and social control revealed through characters and setting.
The method that is used in this study is library research. Most of the sources are about the theory of characters and characterization, theory of setting, theories of popular culture, theory of social control, theory of social values, and the novel itself. The writer uses sociological criticism to analyze the novel. The criticism is suitable because the writer wants to analyze the society in the novel based on theories of sociology without considering any history.
x ABSTRAK
NICOLAUS GOGOR SETA DEWA. The Values and Type of the Society as the Result of Mass Culture and Social Control in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011.
Fahrenheit 451 adalah sebuah novel tentang penyensoran, budaya massa, represi, dan efek-efeknya kepada masyarakat. Penelitian ini menunjukkan bagaimana budaya massa dan kontrol sosial berpengaruh terhadap nilai-nilai dan tipe masyarakat dalam Fahrenheit 451.
Penelitian ini terdiri dari tiga rumusan masalah untuk dijawab. Masalah pertama adalah tentang bagaimana tokoh-tokoh digambarkan. Masalah kedua adalah tentang bagaimana seting digambarkan. Masalah ketiga adalah tentang bagaimana nilai-nilai dan tipe masyarakat di Fahrenheit 451 yang merupakan hasil budaya massa dan kontrol sosial diungkapkan melalui tokoh-tokoh dan seting.
Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah studi pustaka. Sebagian besar dari sumber-sumber yang digunakan adalah tentang teori penokohan, teori seting, teori budaya populer, teori kontrol sosial, teori nilai-nilai sosial, dan novel itu sendiri. Penulis menggunakan kritik sosiologi untuk menganalisa novel. Jenis kritik tersebut cocok untuk digunakan dalam penelitian ini karena penulis hendak menganalisa masyarakat dalam novel berdasarkan teori sosiologi tanpa memperhatikan sejarah apapun.
1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
An individual person is always connected with his/her society, although one person is not essentially can be seen as a description of a society at large. Bryan S. Turner and Chris Rojek said on their book, Society and Culture: Principles of Scarcity and Solidarity that:
“Being-in-the-world is always socially interconnected. Anxiety, frailty and pleasure can only be fully understood sociologically. The body is not a natural condition, but an accessory of society. The patterning of behaviour in individuals is fundamentally interconnected with social patterning” (Turner and Rojek, 2001: 1).
The understanding that individuals are connected with the society is important in analyzing literary texts because it concerns with characters and the social environment of the story.
According to Elizabeth Langland in Society in the Novel there are four commonly used basic arrangements or roles concerning the society of the novel. One of them says that characters enmeshed in a social milieu are presented as being in conflict with it (Langland, 1984: 11). Another says:
Society can be depicted as inevitably destructive of human possibility. The sociological/naturalistic novels weight the conflict between individuals and society in such a way that the most admirable characters are most subject to destruction since their best qualities, rather than setting them apart from society’s inimical values, leave them more vulnerable (Langland, 1984: 12).
Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about censorship, mass culture, devious
repression and their effects to the society. The story is set on the future of fictional America. Guy Montag, the protagonist of the novel, is a fireman. Firemen in the story are not people who extinguish fire. They are book burners who act as the secret police of the state. In this fictional America, books are forbidden and people are not allowed to read them. The firemen‟s duty is to track and burn the books, along with the house where they are saved. People do not have the habit to think, and therefore when Montag is confronted with Clarisse McClellan, a girl from his neighborhood who talks about peculiar things to him, he begins to doubt everything, including himself and the society he lives in. For example, he forgets where and when he first met his wife, he feels strange that people do not talk to each other much and spend their time watching television or listening to the radio and accepts it as a social life.
In short, the people in the story are ignorant and they do not question about the conditions that surround them. Montag himself becomes defiant. He reads books secretly and plots rebellious action. It makes him a wanted person and forces him to run away. Later he finds a new purpose of life in a community of the outcasts.
Ray Bradbury, the author, intends Fahrenheit 451 as a warning of the danger of the development of new culture in the society, television and radio. In an interview for the 50th anniversary edition of Fahrenheit 451 he said:
social atmosphere: the impact of TV and radio and the lack of education. I could see the coming event of schoolteachers not teaching reading anymore. The less they taught, the more you wouldn‟t see books (Bradbury, 1991: 182).
Although he said that he is more concerned about social atmosphere than political situations, it is clear that he also includes political situations as an important aspect of the novel. Government in the story is represented by the firemen and police as institutions which control the stability in the society. The government wants people to be obedient and ignorant, which mean they cannot question the government and therefore creating stability across the nation. That is the reason why books in Fahrenheit 45 is forbidden and have to be burned, along with other strategies, cultures, and deceptions in favor for the state.
However, it is true that Bradbury is more concerned about the sociological condition of the people. The novel presents how mass culture, television and radio, can change the overall culture of the society. It is not entirely the government‟s fault that the people change, but the people change itself which then
the condition is used by the government.
The writer is interested to analyze Fahrenheit 451 because it is relevant to the world today, where many people have lost interest in reading books and heavily influenced by mass culture. Also, banning books or censorship is a common practice when the books do not agree with the ideology of the ruler or the common interest. The example can be found in Indonesia in New Order era when the government banned Pramoedya Ananta Toer‟s books because they were
authority. This study will try to reveal the values and type of a society which is influenced by mass culture and social control in Fahrenheit 451.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on the background of the study, the writer formulates these three problems to do the analysis.
1. How are the characters described? 2. How is the setting described?
3. How do the characters and setting reveal mass culture and social control affecting the values and type of the society in Fahrenheit 451?
C. Objectives of the Study
This study has three objectives to answer the main issue of this research. The first is to describe the characters in the story. The second one is to describe the setting, especially the general environment of the story. The third objective is to find out the values and form of the society in the story as the result of mass culture and social control based on the description of the characters and setting.
D. Definition of Terms
The first term that will be explained is values. The term „values‟ here refers to its definition in sociological study. It is defined as “criteria or standards
of preference” (in Rokeach, 1979: 16). “Values are simultaneously components of
psychological processes, of social interaction, and of cultural patterning and storage” (in Rokeach, 1979: 17).
The second term is type. „Type‟ here refers to a kind of society in sociology. “Sociologists and anthropologists (experts who study early and tribal
cultures) usually refer to six basic types of societies, each defined by its level of technology” (cliffsnotes.com, 2011). There are „hunting and gathering societies‟, „pastoral societies‟, „horticultural societies‟, „agricultural societies‟, „feudal societies‟, „industrial societies‟, and „postindustrial societies‟. Inside these basic
types, there are still many other types based on its political, economical, relationship, or other aspects.
The third term is mass culture. The term „mass culture‟ is a type of definition concerning „popular culture‟. There are several definitions of popular
culture, and a way to define it is as „mass culture‟. Mass culture is a popular culture that concerns about the mass or large number or people.
It is mass produced for mass consumption. Its audience is a mass of non-discriminating consumers. The culture itself is formulaic, manipulative (to the political right or left, depending on who is doing the analysis). It is a culture that is consumed with brain-numbed and brain-numbing passivity (Storey, 2009: 6).
6
and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. She says that both of the novels are about the limitation of freedom, dark future, and exile as the right answer to escape such oppressed society.
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale depict the rational decision to go into exile, to leave one’s native land, that is, the pre-exile condition. These novels present horrifying views of the near future where societal pressures enforce rigid limitations on individual freedom. Their alienated characters find their circumstances repugnant. Justice and freedom are denied them, along with the possibility for enriching their lives through intellectual pursuits (in Bloom, 2008: 43). In this essay, Wood compared the two novels and related them to show that both of them have similar theme about exile. She concludes that freedom must be guarded in order to be maintained, and so the danger of repressive society presented in the novel does not happen.
In an essay entitled Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451, Brian Baker explains that there is a connection between censorship and book burning with the lost of cultural values and morality in Fahrenheit 451’s society. He says that Bradbury sees books as cultural values worth preserving.
frequented by Bradbury in his childhood. The book is, for Bradbury, a repository of those values worth preserving (in Seed, 2005: 489).
Further, he says that the society in Fahrenheit 451 is a society without ethical base because of book banning.
Bradbury‟s insistence upon the materiality of ideas indicates his
conception of books is as central to human experience and human culture. When books are lost, so is humanity. Books, in Fahrenheit 451, are transmitters of the ethical knowledge that produces stable and liberal communities. The society of Fahrenheit 451 is one without this source of moral direction, and therefore with no ethical base (in Seed, 2005: 490). This study will see this issue more thoroughly, not only the effect censorship but also the mass culture that change the society.
A paper from www.123helpme.com, Censorship in Fahrenheit 451, says that the government in Fahrenheit 451 is totalitarian and it uses its power to oppress the people by censorship.
The theme of this story must be that censorship gets out of hand if used incorrectly. It should be used to keep certain materials away from minors, but adults should have access to a variety of materials. In Montag's world, a predominately totalitarian government has used censorship as a means to destroy anything they do not agree with . . . The author most likely intended to show how censorship and government control can get to be uncontrollable, similar to the stories of 1984 and Brave New World (www.123helpme.com, 2011).
The author of the paper does not explain further how incorrectly censorship is used in the story, and rather writes too much summary.
Peter Sisarios in his essay, Peter Sisarios on Literary and Biblical Allusions, focuses on the use of literary and biblical allusions in Fahrenheit 451,
which is to show anti-intellectual culture and society in the novel.
that the nature of life is cyclical and we are currently at the bottom of an intellectual cycle (in Bloom, 2007: 47).
Sisarios mentions some quotations of literary works or Bible that are used by the characters of Fahrenheit 451, and describes their functions. For example, the quotation from Gulliver’s Travels is used to show the struggle between reasonability with being saddled to tradition. This essay can show that Ray Bradbury sided with intellectual and literate culture rather than mass culture that is promoted by the state in Fahrenheit 451.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theories of Characters and Characterization
According to Abrams, the meaning of characters are the persons represented in a dramatic and narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed by particular moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by inferences from what the persons say and their distinctive ways of saying it—the dialogue — and from what they do — the action (Abrams, 1999: 32-33). This definition can be used to identify a character in the story.
M. J. Murphy in Understanding Unseens: An Introduction to English Poetry and the English Novel for Overseas Students (1977: 161-173) says that
a. Personal description. The authors can describe a person‟s appearance and clothes.
b. Characters as seen by another. Instead of describing a character directly, the author can describe him through the eyes and opinions of another. c. Speech. The author can give us insight into the character of one of the
persons in the book through what the person says.
d. Past life. By letting the reader learn something about a person‟s life the author can give us a clue to events that have helped to shape a person‟s
character (by direct comment by the author, through the person‟s thoughts,
through his conversation or through the medium of another person).
e. Conversation of others. The authors can give us clues to a person‟s character through the conversations of other people and the things they say about him.
f. Reactions. The author can also give us a clue to a person‟s character by letting us know how that person reacts to various situations and events. g. Direct Comment. The author can describe a comment on a person‟s
character directly.
h. Thoughts. The author can give us direct knowledge of what a person is thinking about.
M.H. Abrams in his A Glossary of Literary Terms states:
A broad distinction is frequently made between alternative methods for characterizing (i.e., establishing the distinctive characters of) the persons in a narrative: showing and telling. In showing (also called "the dramatic method"), the author simply presents the characters talking and acting and leaves the reader to infer the motives and dispositions that lie behind what they say and do. The author may show not only external speech and actions, but also a character's inner thoughts, feelings, and responsiveness to events; for a highly developed mode of such inner showing, see stream of consciousness. In telling, the author intervenes authoritatively in order to describe, and often to evaluate, the motives and dispositional qualities
of the characters” (1999: 33 - 35).
In Reading and Writing about Literature, Rohrberger and Woods say that characterization is the process by which an author creates characters, the device by which he makes us believe that a character is the particular type of person (1971: 180). About the role of characters in the story, they say “Characters have an important role in a story since they help the readers participate explicitly in the experience of the story” (Rohrberger and Woods: 1971: 19). Also, according to them, there are two ways in the way an author characterizes their characters:
Direct Method is applied to describe the character‟s physical appearance and also
to describe their intellectual and moral attributes or to explain the degree of the character‟s sensibility. Their description is based on the author‟s point of view.
2. Theory of Setting
“The overall setting of a narrative or dramatic work is the general locale,
historical time, and social circumstances in which its action occurs” (Abrams,
1999: 284). In other words, settings deal with place, time, and the general/social environments inside the story. Usually, a literary work is also influenced by the author‟s surroundings, experience, and beliefs.
Holman and Harmon in A Handbook of Literature state “the physical, and sometimes spiritual, background against which the action of a narrative (novel, drama, short story, poem) takes place” (1986: 284). According to them, setting has four elements:
a. The actual geographic location, its topography, scenery, and such physical arrangements as the location of the windows and doors in a room.
b. The occupations and daily manner of living of the characters. c. The time or period which the action takes place.
d. The general environment of the characters, for example: religious, mental, moral, social, and emotional condition through which the people in the narrative move. (Holman and Harmon, 1986: 284)
3. Theories of Popular Culture as Mass Culture and Mass Society a. Popular Culture
In order to determine the meaning of popular culture, the term “culture” must be understood first. Raymond Williams, a critic and novelist, remarks that
“culture” is one of the most complicated words in English. Williams suggests
three broad definitions:
1. “A general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development”.
2. “A particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group”. 3. “The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic
activity”. (Storey, 2009: 1-2)
According to John Storey in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, there are six possible definitions of popular culture. The first way to
define it is simply to say that Popular Culture is “culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people” (Storey, 2009: 5). It is seen from quantitative point of view.
“A third way of defining popular culture is as „mass culture‟” (Storey,
2009: 8). Everything this culture concerns is about the mass, in large number of people. “It is mass produced for mass consumption. Its audience is a mass of non-discriminating consumers” (Storey, 2009: 8). Further details about this category will be explained later in the next part.
The fourth definition contends that popular culture is the culture that originates from „the people‟. “According to this definition, the term should only be used to indicate an „authentic‟ culture of „the people‟. This is popular culture as folk culture: a culture of the people for the people” (Storey, 2009: 9). This definition is different with the other definitions because it considers popular culture as a folk or people culture. This may cause a problem of who are determined as „people‟ there.
The fifth definition of popular culture is concerned with political analysis of Antonio Gramsci, particularly on his concept of hegemony. In short, popular culture in this definition is culture that is used by the dominant group in society to win over the subordinate group.
Storey states that the sixth definition of popular culture is one informed by recent thinking around the debate on postmodernism. “The main point to insist on here is the claim that postmodern culture is a culture that no longer recognizes the distinction between high and popular culture” (Storey, 2009: 12). This definition means that there is no distinction of culture. „Popular culture‟ is the same with any other kind of culture because of the “postmodern blurring of the distinction
There is a common concept between those six definitions. “Finally, what all these definitions have in common is the insistence that whatever else popular culture is, it is definitely a culture that only emerged following industrialization and urbanization” (Storey, 2009: 13). The point of this part is only to outline the six definitions of popular culture. The nearest definition that can be applied to Fahrenheit 451 is the third, popular culture as mass culture, because the definition
outlines the use of mass production and mass consumption, and also their effects to the people. It is the same in the novel where culture is mass promoted to the people. It will be explained further on the next part.
b. Mass Culture and Mass Society
According to John Storey, mass culture is a popular culture that concerns about the mass, or large number or people.
It is mass produced for mass consumption. Its audience is a mass of non-discriminating consumers. The culture itself is formulaic, manipulative (to the political right or left, depending on who is doing the analysis). It is a culture that is consumed with brain-numbed and brain-numbing passivity (Storey, 2009: 8).
Dominic Strinati in his book, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, says that the coming of mass media and the increasing commercialization of culture and leisure gave rise to issues, interests and debates which are still with us today. The development of the idea of popular culture relates to the debates over mass culture. There are at least three main themes about the debates:
control? ... The second theme concerns the influence of commercialization and industrialization upon popular culture. Does the emergence of culture in commodity forms mean that criteria of profitability and marketability take precedence over quality, artistry, integrity and intellectual change? Or does the increasingly universal market for popular culture ensure that it is truly popular because it makes available commodities people actually want? ... The third theme concerns the ideological role of popular culture. Is popular culture there to indoctrinate the people, to get them to accept and adhere to ideas and values which ensure the continued dominance of those in more privileged positions who thus exercise power over them? Or is it about rebellion and opposition to the prevailing social order? (Strinati, 2006: 3).
Andreas Huyssen in the book After the Great Divide explains the relationship between modernism and mass culture.
The first essay, „The Hidden Dialectic‟ argues in broad outline that technological modernization of society and the arts (through the media of reproduction) was used by the historical avant-garde to sustain its revolutionary political and aesthetic claims (1986: x).
He further explains that mass culture depends on technology like transportation, household, and leisure.
Mass culture as we know it in the West is unthinkable without 20th century−media techniques as well as technologies of transportation (public and private), the household and leisure. Mass culture depends on technologies of mass production and reproduction and thus the homogenization of the difference (Huyssen, 1986: 9).
In the theories of popular culture, media is used to transmit certain ideology to people or merely to commercialize something. Therefore, people are just objects, not subjects, to these reasons. They feel the needs of pleasure and media gives it to them, but without knowing it, they are controlled.
totalitarian political systems was seen by many as another way, along with coercion, of further entrenching such systems and suppressing democratic alternatives. Mass media such as radio and film transmitted and inculcated the official ideology of the fascist state because they could be controlled centrally and broadcast to the population at large (Strinati, 2006: 4).
Totalitarian society is known to be a type of mass society, where the people are controlled by the media. An authentic example of this is the ruling power of Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s. Nazi established its ideology in all areas of culture and art, and eliminated alternative political and aesthetic ideologies. They did it with the help of intellectuals, writers, painters, musicians, and all kinds of artists to push their ideologies to people. “The absence of countervailing organisations in totalitarian societies just added the efficiency of this equation: mass media equaled mass propaganda equaled mass repression” (Strinati, 2006: 5).
Liberal democracies have been known as the other type of this so called mass society. Unlike totalitarian societies which concern more about the ideology,
it concerns more about the commercialisation of culture. “The concept of mass
society has formed one important perspective on the role of mass media and mass culture in modern capitalist societies” (Strinati, 2006: 5).
Strinati expresses that the major claim of mass society theory refers to the disruptive consequences of industrialization and urbanization. Industrialization is said to have worn away the integrated societies along with its values.
development of large anomic cities populated by anonymous crowds, and the relative absence of moral integration. These processes are thought to lie behind the emergence of a mass society and mass culture (Strinati, 2006: 5-6).
The characteristic of mass society is that it consists of people who can only relate to each other like atoms in a physical or chemical compound. This is called “atomisation”.
Mass society consists of atomized people, people who lack any meaningful or morally coherent relationships with each other. These people are clearly not conceived of purely and simply as isolated atoms, but the links between them are said to be pure contractual, distant and sporadic rather than close, communal and well integrated (Strinati, 2006: 6).
In other words, the people have no close relationship with each other. An individual even does not have certain traits that can tell him/her apart from others, because he/she needs others to characterize him/her.
According to the theory, people in a mass society are atomized both socially and morally. The contacts between people are entirely formal and they lack any deeper sense of moral integrity since moral order declines in a mass society.
if people do not have secure sense of moral value, then a spurious and ineffectual order will emerge instead, and people will turn to surrogate and fake moralities. This will hereby aggravate rather than resolve the moral crisis of mass society. Mass culture plays a part here in that it is seen as one of the major sources of a surrogate and ineffective morality. Without appropriate mediatory organizations, individuals are vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation by core institutions such as the mass media and popular culture (Strinati, 2006: 6).
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment explain the difference between mass society and society under dictatorship.
shall keep. But from this day on you will be a stranger among us.‟ Anyone who does not conform is condemned to economic impotence which is prolonged in the intellectual powerlessness of the eccentric loner. Disconnected from the mainstream, he is easily convicted of inadequacy (2002: 105-106).
Consequently, a mass society is beyond dictatorship. Repression actually is no longer needed, although it is certainly still exist, because people conform to the ruler‟s desire. However, mass culture is a form of repression although people do
not know it. “The culture industry endlessly cheats its consumers out of what it
endlessly promises… The culture industry does not sublimate: it suppresses by
constantly exhibiting the object of desire” (Horkheimer, 2002: 111). This
suppression has further effect, which is to control the people.
The more strongly the culture industry entrenches itself, the more it can do as it chooses with the needs of consumers−producing, controlling, disciplining them… To be entertained means to be in agreement. Entertainment makes itself possible only by insulating itself from the totality of the social process, making itself stupid and perversely renouncing from the first the inescapable claim of any work, even the most trivial: in its restrictedness to reflect the whole (Horkheimer, 2002: 115-116).
From the theories explained, it can be inferred that mass culture and mass society are dangerous. Strinati states that they are really not good. He explains that the theory tries to understand the functions and effects of mass culture.
5. Theory of Social Control
Stan Cohen defines social control as:
organized responses to crime, delinquency and allied forms of deviant and/or socially problematic behaviour which are actually conceived of as such, whether in the reactive sense (after the putative act has taken place or the actor been identified) or in the proactive sense (to prevent the act) (Innes, 2003: 3).
It refers to the “purposive mechanisms used to regulate the conduct of people who are seen as deviant, criminal, worrying or troublesome in some way by others” (Innes, 2003: 3).
The idea of social control cannot be separated by the idea of social order. “Social order is composed of the diverse sets of ideas, actions and interactions,
which in some fashion contribute to the ongoing constitution of societal organization” (Innes, 2003: 6).
There are three key elements of social control: police, punishment, and surveillance. Martin Innes in Understanding Social Control: Deviance, crime and social order defines police as:
a specific, modern organization, endowed with the state‟s legal authority to use physical coercion or the threat of it, to enforce the law in pursuance of the maintenance of social order. In contrast, policing refers to a diverse range of ordering and controlling activities, performed by a wide range of agencies (Innes, 2003: 64).
Punishment is “understood as the imposition of some form of censure or sanction in response to a deviant act, obviously constitutes an important mode of social control” (Innes, 2003: 80). Surveillance is defined by David Lyon as:
with the intention of modifying that conduct in some manner. (Innes, 2003: 113).
6. Theory of Social Values
All human groupings develop normative elements, which is “conceptions
of preferred and obligatory conduct and of desirable and undesirable states of affairs” (in Rokeach, 1979: 15). There are two types of normative elements:
“norms (specific obligatory demands, claims, expectations, rules) and values (the
criteria of desirability)” (in Rokeach, 1979: 15).
The term „values‟ is specifically defined as “criteria or standards of
preference” (in Rokeach, 1979: 16). “Values are simultaneously components of psychological processes, of social interaction, and of cultural patterning and
storage” (in Rokeach, 1979: 17). In social relations, values‟ criteria of desirability
may emphasize:
equality or inequality; collectivity or individual interest; acceptance or rejection of authority; individual autonomy or interdependence; expressiveness or restraint (affectivity/neutrality); diffuseness or specificity; ascribed qualities or excellence of performance (ascription or achievement); particularistic membership or categorical memberships; personalized or universalistic standards; hostility or affection or indifference; dominance or submission (in Rokeach, 1979: 22).
C. Theoretical Framework
Theories of popular culture as mass culture and mass society, social control, and social values, are used to present the background for further analysis in chapter three. After the characters and setting are analyzed, these theories will be used to relate them.
22 CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
A. Object of the Study
The object of this study is a novel written by Ray Bradbury, an American author well known for his science fiction stories, entitled Fahrenheit 451. The writer uses the Del Rey Books edition which was published in 1991. This edition comes in 190 pages with three chapters and additional materials, namely Afterword, Coda, and A Conversation with Ray Bradbury.
Fahrenheit 451 originated from a short story called “The Fireman” by Ray
Bradbury. It appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1950. Fahrenheit 451 is the long version of that short story. It is first published in 1953 by Ballantine Books. The book won some awards for science fiction literature such as Hugo Award and Prometheus Award. It has been made into a film by Francois Truffaut in 1966 and adapted as graphic novel by Tim Hamilton in 2009.
the state. However, he is reckless in to do so. Before he has a chance to do anything about it, he reads a poem to a group of women in his house. This action is considered against the law because it reveals that he possesses a book and that he reads it. He is reported by them and is own wife. He runs away and finds a group of people that dedicates themselves to memorize the content of books that they have read. The story ends when the war begins, and his town is bombed while he watches from afar.
B. Approach of the Study
The writer uses sociological criticism to analyze the literary work. From an essay called Literature as Equipment for Living, Kenneth Burke explains what sociological criticism is concerned about.
With what, then, would “sociological criticism” along these lines be concerned? It would seek to codify the various strategies which artists have developed with relation to the naming of situations. In a sense, much of it would even be “timeless,” for many of the “typical, recurrent situations” are not peculiar to our own civilization at all (in Richter, 1998: 596).
It means that sociological criticism is concerned about how the authors describe situations in a society. It does not have to be just like a factual society in history because much of them are not the same as the society in our civilization. Burke gives an example that Aesop’s Fables apply to human relations now as just fully
as they applied in ancient Greece. This definition is suitable to analyze Fahrenheit 451 because the society is fictional and does not exist in history.
Burke specifically says that “Sociological classifications, as herein
works of art and to social situations outside of art” (in Richter, 1998: 597). The
fact that it applies to social situations is relevant to this study. It is also explained that sociological criticism would consider works of art as “strategies for selecting
enemies and allies, for socializing losses, for warding off evil eye, for purification, propitiation, and desanctification, consolation and vengeance, admonition and exhortation, implicit commands or instructions of one sort or another” (in Richter, 1998: 598). What he is trying to say is that literature can act as kind of warning to dangers in society. This statement is applicable to Fahrenheit 451 because one of its main problems shows the danger of pleasure seeking society.
The sociological criticism is used as a basis that a literary work can be analyzed apart from history and the society it was made in, to seek its sociological aspects which are relevant to actual human relations. In this study case, it is used to relate the intrinsic elements of Fahrenheit 451 as the author’s way to organize his ideas of a type of human relations, especially the effect of mass culture and social control to a society.
C. Method of the Study
The method that is used in this study is library research. The writer read and collected data from books and other sources to support the research. It consists of primary and secondary sources. The primary source for this study is Fahrenheit 451, a novel by Ray Bradbury. Secondary sources are used for
J. Murphy, A Handbook of Literature by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction by John Storey, An
Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture by Dominic Strinati, Understanding
Social Control: Deviance, crime and social order by Martin Innes, and
Understanding Human Values: Individual and Social by Milton Rokeach.
There were several steps to do this research. The first step was reading the literary work which is wanted to be analyzed, Fahrenheit 451. By reading, the writer found out that mass culture and social control is an important issue in the story.
The next step was deeper reading. This step focuses on the reading about the most important issue in this research, which is literature. The purpose was to understand Fahrenheit 451 thoroughly and to focus about the problems which would be analyzed. The writer collected the parts of the play, such as quotations, that are relevant to the research.
The third step was to search relevant data for the study. The writer uses theories mainly from books. The literary theories are used to answer problem formulation number one and two about characters’ characterization and setting in
the play.
26 CHAPTER IV
ANALYSIS
This chapter will answer the problem formulation in the first chapter. It will be divided into three parts. The first part is Characters in Fahrenheit 451, the second part is the Setting of Fahrenheit 451, and the third part is the type of Society in Fahrenheit 451 as a Result of Mass Culture and Social Control. The description of the characters and setting in the first and second part will be used to find out about the type of society in Fahrenheit 451 that will be described in the last part of the analysis.
A. Characters in Fahrenheit 451
The first part of the analysis will review the description of the characters. The data will later help to reveal the effect of mass culture and social control in the society. The writer divides the characters into two groups: The Nonconformists and The Model Citizens. The Nonconformists are characters who do not follow the established behavior of the society. There are Guy Montag, Clarisse McClellan, Faber, and Granger. The Model Citizens are characters that go with the state’s ideology and represent the society in Fahrenheit 451. There are
Mildred Montag, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles, and Captain Beatty.
methods that can be found in the novel to present the characters are: personal description, characters as seen by another, speech, conversation of others, reactions, and mannerism.
1. The Nonconformists a. Guy Montag
Montag is the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451. He has a job as a fireman. Firemen in this novel are not the same as firemen in the real world. They do not extinguish fire, instead they start fire. Particularly, they track and burn books. Books are forbidden possession in the story. At first, Montag is described as someone who conforms to the system in the society. He seems to enjoy his job and even takes pleasure of it, making him like a pyromaniac.
IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN. It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history (Bradbury, 1991: 3).
However, as the story goes, it is clear that Montag is not like the ordinary people in the society. He is open-minded, which is not a common trait for the people in the society, and certainly not for a fireman whose job is to eradicate knowledge. It can be seen after his first encounters with Clarisse McClellan, a girl who asks questions ordinary people would not. Clarisse feels that Montag is not like other fireman.
at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You‟re one of the few who put up with me. That‟s why I think it‟s so strange you‟re a fireman. It just doesn‟t seem right for you, somehow” (Bradbury, 1991: 23-24).
His tendency to think is not common for the society in Fahrenheit 451. Therefore, he never shows this side of his to other people except Clarisse who seems to know him more than anyone, even his wife. Also, because of his tendency to think, he can feel that something is wrong in the society and the state. Montag is a confused person after he finds out that there is much weirdness in the society. He has difficulty in choosing what he is going to do next; playing safe by continuing his job as a fireman or rebelling that can lead to punishment.
In this confusion, he starts to change into rebellious person although the desire is suppressed. He tries being secretive not to let other people know about himself, and especially about him hiding and reading books, which of course is a forbidden action.
Montag made sure the book was well hidden behind the pillow, climbed slowly back into bed, arranged the covers over his knees and across his chest, half sitting, and after a while Mildred moved and went out of the room and Captain Beatty strolled in, his hands in his pockets (Bradbury, 1991: 3).
sea” gives insight that their relationship is empty. They even forget the place and
time when they first met.
“When did we meet? And where?” …
He clarified it. The first time we ever met, where was it, and when?” … “I don‟t know,” she said.
He was cold “Can‟t you remember?” “It‟s been so long.”
Only ten years, that‟s all, only ten!” (Bradbury, 1991: 42-43).
Although his relationship with his wife is not good and they barely know each other, Montag still feels that he must share his secret, his curiosity towards books and his suppressed desire to rebel. He hopes that his wife will understand his action and help him.
“We can‟t do anything. We can‟t burn these. I want to look at them, at least look at them once. Then if what the Captain says is true, we‟ll burn them together…We‟ve got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we‟re in such a mess….We‟re heading right for the cliff, Millie. God, I don‟t want to go over. This isn‟t going to be easy. We haven‟t anything to go on, but maybe we can piece it out and figure it and help each other.” (Bradbury, 1991: 66).
He is disappointed when later Mildred betrays him. After that, Montag says that he does not feel anything about her, even when the war will start soon and Mildred could be dead any moment.
“It‟s strange, I don‟t miss her, it‟s strange I don‟t feel much anything,” said Montag. “Even if she dies, I realized a moment ago, I don‟t think I‟ll feel sad. It isn‟t right. Something must be wrong with me.” (Bradbury, 1991: 155).
b. Clarisse McClellan
meaning of his life. They meet each other in the beginning of the story near the station when he walks to his house. Unlike other people in the society, Clarisse is curious about anything, a bit innocent like a child, even little things that do not attract most of people. Montag realizes this immediately after he looks at her face. Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them (Bradbury, 1991: 5).
Clarisse likes to observe everything, including people‟s behaviour. For
instance, she thinks it is weird that people do not think about anything and let everything goes by without they appreciate it. She also criticizes that what people consider as social is wrong because they just talk nonsense without listening. She says “I sometimes think drivers don‟t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly,” (Bradbury, 1991: 9). Because of this, Montag states that Clarisse thinks too many things.
Her curiosity and critical thinking are considered strange in Fahrenheit 451‟s society. She does not do common people‟s leisure activities in the novel, such as watching „parlor walls‟ (television) or racing in „Fun Parks‟. She also
likes to skip schools because it seems people do not like her or miss her.
“Why aren‟t you in school? I see you every day wandering around.”“Oh, they don‟t miss me,” she said. “I‟m antisocial, they say. I don‟t mix. It‟s so strange. I‟m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn‟t it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this . . . But, I don‟t think it‟s social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?” (Bradbury, 1991: 29).
“Sometimes I‟m ancient. I‟m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I‟m afraid of them and they don‟t like me because I‟m afraid.” (Bradbury, 1991: 30).
The proof that her curiosity is considered strange and dangerous is when she must see a psychiatrist because of her habit of wandering alone.
“I‟ve got to go to see my psychiatrist now. They make me go. I make up things to say. I don‟t know what he thinks of me . . . The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies.” (Bradbury, 1991: 23).
c. Faber
Faber used to be an English professor before books were banned. He met Montag a year before the events in the novel started. Apparently, Montag still remembers him when they had a talk in a park. What they talked about is not clear but it seems it was about books or other forbidden things because Montag suddenly remembers him he talks with Clarisse.
Faber is frightened and he does not trust people easily. He does not trust Montag at first especially because he is a fireman.
“Professor Faber, I have a rather odd question to ask. How many copies of the Bible are left in this country?”
“I don‟t know what you‟re talking about!” “I want to know if there are anycopies left at all.”
“This is some sort of trap! I can‟t talk to just anyoneon the phone!” (Bradbury, 1991: 76).
look so old any more, and not quite as fragile. Slowly his fear went” (Bradbury, 1991: 80).
He has a desire to defy, but he admits it himself that he is a coward to do it. “I am a cowardly old fool” (Bradbury, 1991: 90) he says. He also admits that
he is a coward for he did not protest when things started to change in the state, although he has the capabilities.
“Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the `guilty,' but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.” (Bradbury, 1991: 81-82). He spends years in fear to be suspected as a potential insurgent. As a result, he is not tempted easily when Montag asks him to form resistance movement together. So he is also a very careful person. “Not if you start talking the sort of talk that might get me burnt for my trouble” (Bradbury, 1991: 60).
Faber even has a passive, fatalistic view, towards the problem. He believes that the society cannot be changed and can only be destroyed. Waiting for the war to happen and eradicate the state is more sensible to him. That is why he suggests that radical movement is no use. “Patience, Montag. Let the war turn off the „families.‟ Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the
centrifuge” (Bradbury, 1991: 87).
Faber‟s cowardly attitude changes when Montag is convicted of hiding
books and murdering Captain Beatty. He becomes brave and arranges a plan for Montag to run, and to delay the pursuers. Faber‟s fate is unknown until the end of the story, whether he is captured, dead, or alive.
“I feel alive for the first time in years”, said Faber. “I feel I‟m doing what I should‟ve done a lifetime ago. For a little while I‟m not afraid. Maybe it‟s because I‟m doing the right thing at last. Maybe it‟s because I‟ve done a rash thing and don‟t want to look the coward to you.” (Bradbury, 1991: 131).
d. Granger
Granger is the leader of the group of secret society consisting of outcasts and fugitives who dedicate themselves to form a kind of library with memorized books. They live on the roads like vagabonds to hide. They claim to discover a way to memorize books that they have read. Granger and these people are former firemen and intellectuals who secretly reading books and defect, just like Montag. Like Montag and Faber, he is rebellious because he does not want to be a part of the society. However, living on the run makes Granger a wise and patient man. He is more experienced and not careless like Montag. He knows that people won‟t change quickly. They have to wait until the time is right to go out and
explain their ideology, unlike Montag who wants to plant books in firemen‟s
houses so the institution can destroy itself.
“When the war‟sover, perhaps we can be of some use in the world.” “Do you really think they‟ll listen then?”
why the world blew up under them. It can‟t last.” (Bradbury, 1991: 152-153).
After Clarisse, Beatty, and Faber, Granger is the last mentor for Montag. He is the one that gives him a purpose to continue his life.
“Montag.” Granger took Montag‟s shoulder firmly. “Walk carefully. Guard your health. If anything happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes. See how important you‟ve become in the last minute!” (Bradbury, 1991: 151).
Not much can be said about Granger since he only appears in a small last part of the book. Nonetheless, he also has an important role in the story.
2. The Model Citizens a. Mildred Montag
Mildred is Guy Montag‟s wife. She is the direct representation of the society. The novel describes most of the society‟s characteristics and the ways of
living through her.
Mildred is portrayed as a thin woman with dyed hair, a common fashion in the story. Her skin is pale because she rarely went out of her house.
He felt her there, he saw her without opening his eyes, her hair burnt by chemicals to a brittle straw, her eyes with a kind of cataract unseen but suspect far behind the pupils, the reddened pouting lips, the body as thin as a praying mantis from dieting, and her flesh like white bacon (Bradbury, 1991: 48).
She is completely obsessed by technology. She spends most of her days by watching „parlor walls‟ (television) and „seashells‟ (radio). Sometimes she drives the „beetle car‟ fast by herself when she does not feel good. Driving car fast is a
“I always like to drive fast when I feel that way. You get it up around ninety-five and you feel wonderful. Sometimes I drive all night and come back and you don‟t know it. It‟s fun out in the country. You hit rabbits, sometimes you hit dogs. Go take the beetle.” (Bradbury, 1991: 64).
Her hobby of driving fast to forget her problems is a small thing compared with her obsession to „parlor walls‟. The „parlor walls‟ television broadcasts a kind of interactive shows where people talking and the audience is given the script to fill the blank parts. Mildred dissociates herself with reality by spending most of her time with parlor walls. She cannot separate reality and fantasy. She considers people in „parlor walls‟ as her family but she never talks to Guy, her own
husband, about her feelings. “Now,” said Mildred, “My „family‟ is people. They tell me things: I laugh, they laugh! And the colors!” (Bradbury, 1991: 73).
Mildred is in self denial and she uses all those activities to run away from her actual problems. When Montag confronts her about why she takes a lot of sleeping pills which make her overdosed and how she cannot separate reality and fantasy, she always evades.
“Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopey you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you.”
“Heck,” she said, “what would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for?” (Bradbury, 1991: 19).
It is also can be seen when Montag tries to make her understand that the characters in the television are no real. She evades the question just like when he confronts her about the sleeping pills.
“Millie? Does the White Clown love you?” No answer.
“Millie, does−”He licked his lips. “Does your „family‟ love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart and soul, Millie?”
“Why‟d you ask a silly question like that?” (Bradbury, 1991: 77).
It is not clear what her problem is and what makes her unhappy, but presumably she feels empty about her life. She suppresses her feeling all the time that she does not know that there is something wrong with her. Just like Montag, she probably also is not happy with her marriage, only she cannot understand her feeling. Therefore, if Montag confronts her with questions about her feeling she always evades. This unconscious emotion leads her to the suicide attempt by drinking all of her sleeping pills. Furthermore, it leads to her decision to betray her husband by reporting him that he has books in their house. Their sleeping in separate beds is a representation of the space between them that cannot be fixed. It is an indication to her betrayal to her husband.
b. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles
Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles are Mildred‟s friends that she invites to Montag‟s home to enjoy the parlor walls together. Both Mrs. Phelps and Mrs.
Bowles are ignorant. Mrs. Phelps has a soldier husband who is about to be sent to war. Like other people, she does not worry about her husband because the Army says that the war will be quick. In fact, she does not even worry about her marriage in general, so she does not care if her husband is killed in the war
Like Mildred, Mrs. Bowles is affected by the media. It is also the example of her ignorance. For instance, she elected the president based on their appearance in parlor walls. She does not think about the president‟s capabilities.
“Sounds fine," said Mrs. Bowles. "I voted last election, same as everyone, and I laid it on the line for President Noble. I think he's one of the nicest-looking men who ever became president.” (Bradbury, 1991: 96).
Mrs. Phelps suppresses her feeling like Mildred. It proves when Montag read them a poem, she suddenly cries because of overwhelming emotion from the poem although she cannot understand what the cause is.
“Sh, sh,” said Mildred. “You're all right, Clara, now, Clara, snap out of it! Clara, what's wrong?”
“I−I,” sobbed Mrs. Phelps, "don't know, don't know, I just don't know, oh oh...” (Bradbury, 1991: 100).
Mrs. Bowles is a woman with practical thought. She has two children, but she only has them for the sake that the world must reproduce. She gave birth by Caesarian section because she thinks the pain of normal birth is unnecessary. That the babies will look like her is just a small consideration of having the babies.
“I‟ve had two children by Caesarian section. No use going through all that agony for a baby. The world must reproduce, you know, the race must go on. Besides, they sometimes look just like you, and that's nice.” (Bradbury, 1991: 96).
c. Captain Beatty
Captain Beatty is Montag‟s supervisor in the firemen‟s office. Beatty is
probably the most complex character in Fahrenheit 451 because of the ambiguity of his traits and actions. He is a very loyal person who does his job without any question. He says, “Any man‟s insane who thinks he can fool the government and
about literature. He can quote some authors, such as Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, or Shakespeare.
Beatty admits it himself that he used to read books because he was curious about the contents. He then felt disappointed because books contradict each other. He thought that they were not important and they only make people even more confused and unhappy than before.
“One last thing,” said Beatty. “At least once in his career, every fireman gets an itch. What do the books say, he wonders. Oh, to scratch that itch, eh? Well, Montag, take my word for it, I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach or believe. They're about nonexistent people, figments of imagination, if they're fiction. And if they're nonfiction, it's worse, one professor calling another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another's gullet. All of them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You come away lost.” (Bradbury, 1991: 33).
This attempt to read books boosts his loyalty to the state. He then agrees that books are dangerous and people are happier without books.
Beatty is manipulative, seen from how he uses his knowledge, either to explain, provoke, or calm Montag down. He shows his superior knowledge to Montag to counter everything he says against him and the state.
“Oh, you were scared silly,” said Beatty, “for I was doing a terrible thing in using the very books you clung to, to rebut you on every hand, on every point! What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives.” (Bradbury, 1991: 107).
but he provokes Montag to burn him instead. Montag realizes that Beatty actually wants to die when he thinks about it later.
Beatty wanted to die.
In the middle of the crying Montag knew it for the truth. Beatty had wanted to die. He had just stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, joking, needling, thought Montag, and the thought was enough to stifle his sobbing and let him pause for air (Bradbury, 1991: 122).
It indicates that Beatty is actually not happy with his life. He does not fear death, but walks towards it. He, just like Mildred and Mrs. Phelps, cannot understand his real feelings. His willingness to accept death is the same as Mildred when she tries to commit suicide by drinking all of her sleeping pills.
B. The Setting of Fahrenheit 451
The second part of the analysis will describe the setting of Fahrenheit 451. This description will focus only on the elements of setting that can be applied to this study: „social circumstances‟ (Abrams, 1999: 284), or „daily manner of living of the characters‟ and „the general environment of the characters‟ (Holman and Harmon, 1986: 284).
1. Technology as a Vital Instrument
Fahrenheit 451 is set in an unknown future American town. In this place
For household purposes, the technology can be seen from fireproofing and about the houses that do daily jobs for its owners. Houses in Fahrenheit 451 are plastered with fireproof material. Therefore, there is no reason to extinguish fire. People do not believe that in the old times, firemen‟s job was to extinguish fires,
not to start it.
“Is it true that long ago firemen put fires out instead of going to start them?”
“No. Houses have always been fireproof, take my word for it.”
“Strange. I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames.” (Bradbury, 1991: 8). Household affairs are also done by machines. The people do not cook because the machines take care of it. “Toast popped out of the silver toaster, was seized by a spidery metal hand that drenched it with melted butter. Mildred watched the toast delivered to her plate” (Bradbury, 1991: 18). Another example is front doors are designed to announce visitors to the people.
She ran a few steps this way, a few steps that, and stopped, eyes wide, when the front door speaker called her name, softly, softly, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone here, someone here, Mrs. Montag, Mrs. Montag, someone's here (Bradbury, 1991: 53).
Other advanced technologies in household affairs are the parlor walls and seashells radio, but they will be described later.
If someone dies, the body will be sent immediately to the “Big Flue‟. They are machines that function as incinerators or crematoriums distributed all over the country by helicopters.
There are machines provided to deal with overdoses. The use of sleeping pills is very common, and apparently overdoses are also a common thing. So, emergency hospitals can be called to send a couple of men to deal with the problem with those machines.
They had this machine. They had two machines, really. One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there. It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil (Bradbury, 1991: 14).
Law enforcement also has the benefits of technology in the form of „Mechanical Hound‟. Mechanical Hounds are robots to track and catch fugitives
once they are programmed with the scent of the targeted people. Their shape more resembles spiders than dogs. There is one Mechanical Hound placed in every fireman‟s station. It is really effective because it can be programmed to remember
the smell of people and catch them.
“. . . nose so sensitive the Mechanical Hound can remember and identify ten thousand odor-indexes on ten thousand men without re-setting!” (Bradbury, 1991: 133).
It seems however, that it has a weakness. It can be diverted if someone drinks a kind of medicine to change the chemical index of the person‟s perspiration, like
Montag does.
2. Laws and Law Enforcers a. The Laws
i. The Law against Independent Thoughts and Individualism
