Sydney Nelesen
13 September 2016
The Idiot Wall
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the government-controlled television shows are catered towards a society of conformists with short attention spans and no desire for any substance or meaning. There is a show in which people randomly yell at each other for no reason other than that they are in some sort of argument. Mildred watches this show, and when asked by Guy what it is about, she has trouble trying to explain it. Guy prompts her with questions about the people arguing and she struggles remembering. Mildred watches her television shows and does not comprehend what is going on because the shows are very nonsensical. She is not bothered by the lack of sense, though. All she cares …show more content…
Mildred also has get togethers during which she and her friends only watch television and barely communicate. When they do, it is about their television shows, another of which is The White Clown. Mildred invites two of her friends over to watch The White Clown. When the show comes onto the walls, “A woman smiled and drank orange juice simultaneously… the room took off on a rocket flight into the clouds; it plunged into a lime-green sea… White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other’s limbs… the room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena [, and then] a number of bodies [flew] in the air” (90). This television show jumps in circles with random events happening after every turn. There is no plot line or meaning to this story, only a theme of violence, which they enjoy greatly. What Mildred’s friends, Clara Phelps and Ann Bowles, choose to watch on television reveals that they are sadistic and shallow-minded. They are not insulted or even affected by the bloody content of the show. In addition, some other shows that society finds interesting and exciting are very short and unrealistic. When Mildred has her friends over to watch television she asks them if they saw the Clara Dove five-minute