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The Conflict between Technology and Nature in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Emi Koyama Introduction This essay will provide us with the opportunity to explore technology and nature in Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury. The protagonist is a “fireman” named Guy Montag, whose job is to burn books. At the beginning of the novel, he thinks that “[i]t was a pleasure to burn” (3). He lives with his wife Mildred [Millie] in the artificial, high-tech society in the city. He appears to feel fine living in this technological city. With respect to this point, however, one critic argues that “[m]achines are of crucial importance. Overall, the book traces Montag’s flight from the dangerous mechanical world of the city to the traditional haven of the country” (Johnson 86-7). In fact, Montag is later chased by the Mechanical Hound, which is one of the representatives of artificial reality. Then he escapes into nature, where he feels that he becomes a part of the natural world. Just when a bomb, a representative product of technology, hits the city at the end of the novel, he is in the woods, and that is where he remembers some things which are critical to him, such as part of Ecclesiastes he has read, and where he first met his wife Mildred, who says, “Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband’r wife,” but “It doesn’t matter” to her (43). We will begin with a simple overview of the novel’s background. Fahrenheit 451 is set in the indefinite future in the United States. People live in the world of mass culture, high technology, censorship, and constant war. Since people are forbidden to read books, if one has books and this fact is detected, those books will be KASUMIGAOKA REVIEW No.18, 29-43, 2012.

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burned by firemen from the government. Therefore, instead of reading books, the chief enjoyment of the majority of people is watching TV. The time when the novel was published was an era of “abuse of thechnology” and “the degradation of the masses” (Zipes 125). With respect to the 1950s in the United States, one critic observes: During this period [the 1950s], the standard of living continued to improve due to postwar prosperity, mass-produced cars and home electric appliances became widely used in ordinary households, and people lived in a highly developed society of mass consumption. In this “affluent society,” American citizens increased their tendency toward adapting themselves to receive the benefits of the status quo. In this society tightly controlled by its own technocracy and bureaucracy, however, young people felt some uneasiness [. . .]. (Baba 61; my translation) The novel features many products that can be considered as the outcome of technology: medical treatment, the TV family and the TV parlor, the Seashell Radio, the Mechanical Hound, the railroad, cars, and printed books. These are worth examining; however, this essay limits its discussion to medical treatment, the TV family and the TV parlor briefly, and the Mechanical Hound. We will first examine medical technology and how it affects Mildred. In relation to her, we will also cursorily look at Mildred and the effects of her TV family on her, and that of the Seashell Radio. Next, the traits of the Mechanical Hound and its chase after Montag will be investigated. We will then briefly look at a character, Professor Faber, who is often associated with nature.

1. Medical Technology and Mildred When Mildred is first presented in the novel, she is in a moribund state, because she has taken too many sleeping pills. At the urgent request of her husband Montag, two medical workers, not Doctors of Medicine, come to the house. They bring a machine which “pumped all of the blood from the body and replaced it with

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fresh blood and serum” (15). During this procedure, she is symbolically portrayed as a bloodless person, which indicates how she is in her daily life. The two operators say that they have “these cases nine or ten a night” (15). In the society in the novel, medical technology is highly developed. Even if one’s condition is very serious like Mildred’s here, a quick treatment without an MD has become possible. Mildred is saved by high technology, yet at the same time her life has been in danger because of one so-called “advance” in technology, sleeping pills. This episode implies two opposite sides of technology: the rapid spread of medical technology simultaneously means the widespread presence of great danger. Mildred’s life has been peril and has been saved, in both cases on account of advanced medical technology. She comes back to life the next morning and does not remember what has happened to her when Montag asks about that.

2. Mildred and Her TV Family and the Seashell Radio One critic suggests the possibility of a relationship between Mildred’s pilltaking and her TV obsession. David Seed comments on Mildred that “[t]here is both a continuity and an analogy between Millie watching the wall-screen and then taking sleeping pills” (90). She watches TV and takes sleeping pills, because she cannot sleep well. Readers cannot see clearly if watching TV is the main reason for that, because there is no mention of it in the novel. At least, however, watching TV does not seem to bring her good sleep. As far as she is concerned, the technology of three-dimensional, wall-size TV screens does not have only good effects. Through watching TV all the time, Mildred’s sense of reality has changed. As one critic writes, “the television [. . .] reduce[s] their audience, Montag’s wife, for one, into listless zombies” (Johnson 87). Because of her state, Montag one day feels that he is becoming one of the meaningless characters on TV: “He felt he was one of the creatures electronically inserted between the slots of the phono-color walls, speaking, but the speech not piercing the crystal barrier. [. . .] They would not touch through the glass” (46-7). This implies that he cannot be a person with more access to Mildred than a TV character. People in general in the novel, not only Mildred, have a tendency to be always

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in the TV parlor. Although it seems quite rare to have children in the world of Fahrenheit 451, some people, though not the Montags, do have children. One of Mildred’s friends, Mrs. Bowles, has two children. She happens to talk about her children when she visits Montag’s house. She says, “I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it’s not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlor’ and turn the switch. It’s like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid” (96). As Raymond Williams observes, “[t]elevision has now been a majority service for a whole generation” (136). If parents are obsessed by TV, as a result, it can happen that their children are obsessed by TV as well. These children would continue to be affected by what their parents have done to them when they grow up. Accordingly, the society is what it is. This episode shows people’s inclination toward watching TV. Since people heavily depend on TV, it can be said that TV can take advantage of humans’ natural tendencies to create and feed their own addiction. Mildred is obsessed not only by her TV family, but also by the radio which is called the Seashell Radio in the novel. It is a small, earphone-shaped mobile radio that everyone in the society appears to have, including the protagonist Montag. Mildred always listens to the Seashell Radio, when not in the TV parlor. She is therefore “an expert at lip reading from ten years of apprenticeship at Seashell ear thimbles” (18). Montag imagines that he “reached over and pulled the tiny musical insect out of her ear” (46). However, he fails to do that in reality. After the radio, moreover, there still is TV between Montag and Mildred. As Marshall McLuhan notes, the radio makes people “remote and inaccessible” (Understanding 331). In his essay he also mentions a listener’s words on the radio: “‘I live right inside the radio when I listen. I more easily lose myself in radio than in a book,’ said a voice from a radio poll” (Understanding 325). It can be inferred that this quotation shows one of the traits of the radio. When Mildred puts the Seashell Radio in her ears, she does not try to listen to Montag. She seems lost in listening to the Seashell Radio, as the person answers in the poll above.

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3. The Mechanical Hound and Montag Some critics note that the firehouse’s Mechanical Hound is most terrifying to the protagonist Montag, who exists somewhere in between the urban, artificial city and the natural world later in the novel. One critic says that “Montag’s particular mechanical enemy is the fire station’s Mechanical Hound [. . .]” (Johnson 87). Another critic writes as follows: Nature is good and technology is bad, but the ultimate terror is a mixture of the two, a kind of symbolic miscegenation. When Montag finally makes his break from the technological future he is pursued by a “mechanical hound,” a terrifying figure which combines the relentlessness of a bloodhound with the infallibility of technology. In Bradbury’s vision the hound is most terrifying for being both alive and not alive. (Huntington 110-11) From these quotations, we can form the opinion that the Mechanical Hound has a cardinal meaning to the protagonist, and to the novel. It would be good to start by looking at what the Mechanical Hound is like. As mentioned above, it is owned by the fire station where Montag works. It is first depicted in the novel in the following way:

The Mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its

gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the firehouse. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and the copper and the steel of the faintly trembling breast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylonbrushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber-padded paws.

[. . .]



“Hello,” whispered Montag, fascinated as always with the dead beast, the

living beast. (24)

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The Mechanical Hound has “a four-inch hollow steel needle” at “the proboscis” that can “inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine” into its target (25). One day at work “Montag touched the muzzle” of the Mechanical Hound that appears to be sleeping in the kennel. It “growl[s]” and even shows its “silver needle” (25). Montag has no idea why it is aggressive toward him. By this time, Montag has started to turn against this society as a result of his occasional meetings with his new neighbor Clarisse, for she is unusual according to the standard of the society in which people are obsessed by all kinds of mass culture and technology. Furthermore, he has stealthily kept books in his house in spite of his job as a fireman. One possible reason for the Mechanical Hound’s strange attitude toward Montag is that someone could have programmed it to watch for Montag, because he is secretly developing his thoughts, contrary to the social system which forbids books. Later in the novel, in fact, it is revealed that Fire Captain Beatty has programmed the Mechanical Hound in order to give Montag a warning. The Chief has somehow noticed Montag’s hidden shift. He says to Montag, “Didn’t I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?” (113). Despite the fact that Montag seems to know that someone controls the Mechanical Hound so as to prevent him from stealing books, he does not stop keeping books at home. Consequently, his house will be set on fire by his firemen colleagues, and himself. As can be seen by the fact that the Mechanical Hound is controlled by the firehouse, a local agency of the government, the Mechanical Hound is used to support the dominant social system. In the novel, the Mechanical Hound belongs to one group, the government. W. R. Irwin comments on robots and their power over people, as follows: My point is that all the devices by which tyranny is secured either exist at present or may be foreseen as probable technological developments of the near future. Even the Mechanical Hound puts no strain on belief; it is a not very daring instance of the malevolent robot. And we all are used to robots. I feel safe in saying that no machine that possesses super-animal or superhuman capabilities can prompt a reader to say “impossible.” (99)

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The Mechanical Hound is one of the elements that sustain the seemingly totalitarian government. One critic argues that the Mechanical Hound is “symbolic of the relentless, heartless pursuit of the State” (Johnson 87). The Mechanical Hound efficiently serves as a threat to anyone who might want to disturb existing conditions. It can be said that those who control the Mechanical Hound, or technology, control society. Another fact about the Mechanical Hound is shown in the novel when it is chasing Montag, who has broken the law and killed Fire Captain Beatty. The chase is broadcast by relay by “camera helicopter,” and the announcer boasts of the perfection of the Mechanical Hound: “— Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake” (133). Readers do not know whether this comment is really correct or not, because the announcer is possibly making up a story in order to attract people’s attention more effectively. It seems, nevertheless, that technology is always right in this society. This fact about the Mechanical Hound might indicate people’s blind faith in technology. As is the case with TV, people in the novel see only the lustrous face of technology, and are unknowingly influenced by its foul side. The Mechanical Hound might be the last piece of technology in the artificial city that Montag has to run away from. After the Mechanical Hound loses track of him, he reaches a river that gives him time to think. The scene is described in this way: “[. . .] the river was mild and leisurely, going away from the people who ate shadows for breakfast and steam for lunch and vapors for supper. The river was very real; it held him comfortably and gave him the time at last, the leisure, to consider this month, this year, and a lifetime of years” (140). This is probably the first depiction in which Montag feels comfortable in the story. The river, one symbol of nature, gives leisure, which is one of the three things missing in this society according to the old, retired English professor named Faber whom Montag has met in a “green park” a year before and who has become a kind of mentor to him (74). What people eat for their meals signifies nothing, which indicates how empty their lives are, and their minds. The river appears to teach Montag that. He looks back on his past and comes to realize that his life has been just like other mindless people’s.

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4. Montag and Nature In the novel, nature is mostly benevolent to Montag who has run away from the artificial city full of high-tech machinery. After he mistakes a deer for the Mechanical Hound in the woods, he smells “heavy musk like perfume,” which the Mechanical Hound does not have. At the same time, he finds the land is filled with the smells of nature: There must have been a billion leaves on the land; he waded in them, a dry river smelling of hot cloves and warm dust. And the other smells! There was a smell like a cut potato from all the land, raw and cold and white from having the moon on it most of the night. There was a smell like pickles from a bottle and a smell like parsley on the table at home. There was a faint yellow odor like mustard from a jar. There was a smell like carnations from the yard next door. He put down his hand and felt a weed rise up like a child brushing him. His fingers smelled of licorice.

He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he

was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough. (144) Montag smells a lot of natural smells that he has not noticed before. In the scene above, he finally realizes that he has been able to escape from the pursuit by the police, that is to say the Mechanical Hound. When he finds the fact of the matter, he then becomes aware of being surrounded by nature in the woods. As a critic observes, “[a]s with Clarisse and Faber, this appreciation helps lead Montag to an understanding of his place in the natural world” (McGiveron 71-2). A few pages later, Montag finds out that he is a part of nature in the woods: “He was a thing of brush and liquid eye, of fur and muzzle and hoof, he was a thing of horn and blood that would smell like autumn if you bled it out on the ground” (146). He is described as feeling like an animal whose blood smells like the current season of the year. Unlike Mildred’s and many other people’s blood that can easily

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be replaced by advanced medical treatment, and probably does not have a smell of the season or the natural world, Montag’s blood smells like autumn after he escapes from the city. As mentioned above, when Montag smells nature in the woods when he sees a deer, at the beginning of the novel he also finds that Clarisse has a smell of nature, which is sweet like “apricots” and “strawberries” (7). The description of her here is contrasted with Montag himself. He also has a smell, but it is “the smell of kerosene” that he uses to burn books at work. He even says that the smell of kerosene is “nothing but perfume” to him (6). At this point, it can be seen that he feels fine living in the technological city, using kerosene to burn books. As Wayne L. Johnson indicates, “Montag at first feels comfortable with machines, especially his flamethrowing equipment” (87). As in the case of Clarisse, McGiveron reports that “Donald Watt has noted that Faber [. . .] is associated with ‘nature and natural smells’” as well (69). When Montag visits Faber, he takes a bible with him.

Faber “smells it lovingly”

(McGiveron 69). Faber says to Montag, “Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was a boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go” (81). It appears that in the novel, smell is related to someone or something that is depicted as close to the natural world, such as Faber and the deer that Montag sees in the woods, although it should be remembered that one’s smell can easily be changed by technology. When Montag meets a group of walking campers in the woods who try to memorize books in order to preserve them, one of them advises Montag to take a kind of chemical drink so that he will “smell like two other people” (147). While smell seems important in the novel, it can be influenced by technology as well. As McGiveron says, “[. . .] Faber’s relationship to books is depicted with appreciative nature imagery” (69). However, “[s]ince Gutenberg the book has been a symbol of technological progress” (Huntington 111). Paper, pen, ink, and printing—these are all products of technology. Marshall McLuhan remarks that “[w]ith Gutenberg Europe enters the technological phase of progress [. . .]” (Gutenberg 155). It can be said, therefore, that the novel is not a complete rejection of technology, although it seems to be in favor of nature, if anything. In fact, in the society

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depicted in the novel, people sometimes use technology to defeat technology. When Montag leaves Faber’s place after a short visit before he burns his house and stolen books, it is disclosed that Faber has made two “small green metal object[s] no larger than a .22 bullet” that function like two-way radios (90). After they part, they communicate with each other through the equipment so as to escape from society. However, the “green bullet” will be destroyed by Montag himself when he burns Fire Chief Beatty with the “flame thrower,” in front of Montag’s house on fire. The Mechanical Hound is also defeated by technology. Soon after Montag burns Captain Beatty, he burns the Mechanical Hound with the flame thrower: “Montag caught it with a bloom of fire, a single wondrous blossom that curled in petals of yellow and blue and orange about the metal dog [. . .]” (120). Thus, the Mechanical Hound is beaten by technology, although another Mechanical Hound is sent from another district in order to chase Montag in any case. As briefly mentioned above, near the end of the story, Montag meets a group of walking campers. The leader of the camp gives Montag a kind of liquid medicine that changes one’s smell. Offering that drug along with coffee, he says to Montag, “Drink this, too. It’ll change the chemical index of your perspiration” (147). Montag takes this, because he has to get clear away from being chased by the Mechanical Hound. Montag is saved by technology, from the pursuit by technology. Although he feels comfortable in the woods, his safe escape to nature could not have been realized without the help of technology.

Conclusion This essay has considered how technology and nature are described in Fahrenheit 451. This topic was first looked at in connection with Mildred. She frequently takes sleeping pills, but forgets that she has taken them. Because of this habit, one day she is finally found dying. She is in danger of losing her life due to medical technology, while she is also saved by it. Her addiction to wall-TV and the Seashell Radio seems to have had only a bad effect on her, as well as on many other people in the society who are just like her. The Mechanical Hound is probably built with the very essence of the most

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advanced technology of society. The splendid portrayal of the Mechanical Hound shows that people depend on technology blindly. The novel reveals that the Mechanical Hound is owned by the government to enforce their policy of censorship. Montag is ultimately able to escape from the Mechanical Hound with the help of Faber, and during his escape he finds that the artificial Hound is completely different from a deer in the woods that has the smell of nature. The fact that the deer is a part of the natural world can tell him that he can also become a part of nature. Professor Faber is for the most part associated with nature. He is given the role of leading Montag, who is struggling between the artificial, technological society and the natural world that is unfamiliar to him, to have an understanding of nature. When readers read through the novel, they might notice that Faber is favorably described, although what has become of him at the end of the novel is obscure. McGiveron writes about Faber as follows: “[. . .] Faber has asserted that one must not forget that humans are a product of and a part of the natural world” (72). Although the author Bradbury has lived in Los Angeles for a long time, it can be thought that he has his childhood hometown, Waukegan, Illinois, in mind as the setting of nature in this novel. One of Bradbury’s biographies says: Waukegan, in Bradbury’s memory, was the perfect place to grow up, an oldfashioned place that he calls Green Town in his “autobiographical fantasy” books, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was a place of friends and extended family, front porches and traveling carnivals, barefoot summers and swimming in the lake. (de Koster 14) Waukegan is the opposite of the city depicted in the novel. In the city, people are alienated or isolated, although they do not seem to be aware of it. There are “[n]o front porches,” “gardens,” nor “rocking chairs any more” in this society, because they are “too comfortable.” If they are there, “[p]eople talked too much. And they had time to think [. . .]” (63). The author’s memory of his childhood might be one of the elements that make him write about the natural world. This essay’s last topic has been the double aspects of technology. Although the novel seems to emphasize the importance of nature, it is a fact that the novel, a

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book, is itself a product of technology. Montag is also sometimes saved by technology. Therefore, we can surmise that the novel does not absolutely reject technology. Bradbury maintains that he trusts technology. He says: Ironically, my fiction is often said to be a denial of scientific technology, but that’s not my intention at all. I truly trust TV, movies, cars, atomic energy. I always take sides with scientific technology that extends our life, youth, and beauty, and gives us a much more pleasant existence. I like scientific technology; it warms us when it’s cold outside and cools us off when it’s hot. It cures disease, and consoles us in our loneliness. What is frightening is the misuse of such scientific technology. (qtd. in Fukushima 281; my translation) As can be seen, Bradbury, though conditionally, relies upon technology rather than rejecting it. If it is used in an appropriate way, technology greatly supports us in our lives, as our lifestyle in the early twenty-first century clearly demonstrates.

Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. New York: Ballantine, 1995（宇野利泰訳． 『華氏 451 度』 ． 早川書房、1975）． De Koster, Katie. Introduction. Readings on Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Katie de Koster. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000. Huntington, John. “Can Books Convert Dystopia into Utopia?” Readings on Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Katie de Koster. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000. 107-12. Rpt. of The Logic of Fantasy: H .G. Wells and Science Fiction. New York: Columbia UP, 1982. Irwin, W. R. The Game of the Impossible, A Rhetoric of Fantasy. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1976. Johnson, Wayne L. Ray Bradbury. New York: Frederick Unger, 1980. McGiveron, Rafeeq. “What ‘Carried the Trick’?: Mass Exploitation and the Decline of Thought in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.” Extrapolation 37.3 (1996): 245-56. Rpt. in Modern Critical Interpretations: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 45l. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea, 2003. 109-20. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. 1962. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1988（森常治訳． 『グーテンベルクの銀河系 ― 活字人間の形成』．みす ず書房、1986). ————. Understanding Media. 1964. London: Routledge, 2001（栗原裕・河本仲聖訳．『メ

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ディア論 ― 人間の拡張の諸相』．みすず書房、1987）． Seed, David. “A Condemnation of Consumerism.” Readings on Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Katie de Koster. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000. 85-92. Rpt. of “The Flight from the Good Life: Fahrenheit 451in the Context of Postwar American Dystopias.” Journal of American Studies 28.2 (1994): 225-40. Williams, Raymond. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. 1974. London: Routledge, 2003. Zipes, Jack. “Fahrenheit 451 Is a Reflection of 1950s America.” Readings on Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Katie de Koster. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000. 124-33. Rpt. of “Mass Degradation of Humanity and Massive Contradictions in Bradbury’s Vision of America in Fahrenheit 451.” No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Ed. Eric S. Rabkin, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander. Southern Illinois UP, 1983. 馬塲弘利．「1980 年代アメリカ小説 ― 概論と文献 ― 」．『KASUMIGAOKA REVIEW』. 第14号 (2008): 61-88 (Baba, Hirotoshi. “American Novels in the 1980s: Overview and Bibliography.” KASUMIGAOKA REVIEW. 14 (2008): 61-88). 福島正実． 「ブラッドベリ・ノート」 ． 『華氏 451 度』 ．レイ・ブラッドベリ著．宇野利泰訳． 早川書房、1975. 277-88 (Fukushima, Masami. “Notes on Bradbury.” Afterword. Fahrenheit 451. By Ray Bradbury. Trans. Toshiyasu Uno. Tokyo: Hayakawa, 1975. 277-88).

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Synopsis

The Conflict between Technology and Nature in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 Emi Koyama Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury is generally considered to be one of the most famous books about censorship. The novel is not only about censorship, however, but also about many other aspects of life at the time when it was written, which is, to some extent, a reflection on the world today as well. The novel is set in the indefinite future in the United States. People live in the world of mass culture, high technology, censorship, and constant war. Since people are forbidden to read books, if one has books and this fact is detected, those books will be burned by “firemen” from the government. Therefore, instead of reading books, the chief enjoyment of the majority of people is watching TV. The story is about a fireman named Guy Montag, whose job is to burn books. He starts to think seriously about his current life patterns: his job, his married life, himself, and the society he lives in. In recognition of his destructive situation, he eventually begins to steal books from work and read them, and then quits his job as a fireman. Later, he escapes into a more natural world and meets some traveling campers who aim to preserve books by memorizing their contents. This essay attempts to examine how technology and nature are depicted in Fahrenheit 451, and how these features influence people and society. The products of technology that this essay mainly focuses on are: medical treatment, the TV family and the TV parlor, and the Mechanical Hound of the firehouse. In this essay, these topics are first looked at in connection with the protagonist Montag’s wife Mildred. Because of her habit of taking sleeping pills, she is found dying when she is first introduced in the novel. Her life is endangered by medical technology, but she is also saved by medical technology. Her addiction to wall-TV

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and the Seashell Radio seems to have deeply affected her, as it has many other people in society who are just like her. The traits of the Mechanical Hound and its chase after Montag are investigated next. Montag is later in the story chased by the Mechanical Hound, which is one of the representatives of technological society. At first, he escapes into nature, where he feels that he becomes a part of the natural world. He is able to flee from the Mechanical Hound through the use of medicine; more specifically, Montag is saved by technology from the pursuit by technology. Although he feels comfortable in the woods, his escape could not have been realized without the help of the technology which allows him to escape to nature safely. As can be seen, people are both put in peril and saved by technology. Therefore it can be concluded that the novel does not absolutely reject technology. If technology is used in an appropriate way, it greatly supports us in our lives, as our lifestyle today clearly demonstrates.

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