AN ANALYSIS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES: FAHRENHEIT 451

The idea of a controlling society set in the future is not a foreign concept to the realms of science-fiction. Technology is often utilized in these stories to control the populace under one vision of a perfect world. In George Orwell’s acclaimed novel 1984, the government of Oceania used “telescreens” that displayed propaganda and censored news in addition to their role as cameras which relayed information back to the Ministry of Love. This constant surveillance provided assurance that the citizens put the needs of the state before themselves. In Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the police precinct of Los Angeles utilized retinal scanning machines to determine the sincerity of the person’s thoughts during routine lie detector tests. These measures perpetuated that the dream of only socially accepted, pure humans holding high statuses. Even in Oshii Mamoru’s Jin-Roh, the National Security Division utilized high-tech heavily armed and armored Capital Police to annihilate non-conformists. The aid of technology assisted all of these fictitious societies in their pursuit of utopia. Ray Bradbury chose for Fahrenheit 451 to have a futuristic and technologically advanced setting to speak in outrage against the possible corruption of technology due to totalitarian abuse. Perhaps science fiction writers speak of one of the greatest fears humans possess, the masking of the truth. The ideology of the control society, deviant thought hinders progression towards a flawless civilization, supports the growth of information concealing technologies to eradicate such “dangerous thought”. The flamethrower, the instrument of terror wielded by the firemen, played the role of such a thought-concealing apparatus. Truly a device with dreaded applications, the flamethrower makes it initially appearance with: With the brass nozzle in [Montag’s] fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene