What events, people, or ideas probably influenced Ray Bradbury while writing Fahrenheit 451?

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury may be set in the future, but it was influenced by the time period that it was written in. This novel was published in the 1950's and the reader can see some of the issues that the people of the 50's worried and felt uncertain about. For example, in this book people have stopped reading books. Books in this alternate society have been replaced by technology, such as television. The loss of books have a very negative impact on the society that Montag lives in and a majority of the population no longer cares to think at all. This shows that some people of the 1950's were frightened that we would become mindless and watch television all day, because television had just been introduced to the world. Another way that this book reflects the time period is because of the mentions of war and air bombing. During the 1950's the Cold War was going on with Soviet Russia and many people were afraid that the United States and the U.S.S.R. would destroy the world with their atomic weapons. The fear of the Cold War is represented in the airplanes that are flying overhead in the novel. At the end of the novel, the city in which Montag had lived is burned to the ground by bombs (Bradbury 160). Overall, this novel represents the advancement of technology, whether it is television or atomic weapons, and the uncertainty that surrounded it. The reader can tell that the author worried that the world would become attached to technology, and in some ways we have become the society that Bradbury seems to fear. For example, Mildred always has an earpiece in that talks to her, and hardly takes it out (Bradbury 18). This can be compared to the iPods and other music devices that we have today. Many people seem to be always listening to music like Mildred, and this has cut down on communication just like it did in Fahrenheit 451.

Bibliography: Bradbury, Ray. Farenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Print