Category: Angels and Demons

As author Dan Brown writes in the novel Angels & Demons, “Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone.” Compared to previous generations, citizens of modern society rely on technology more than ever. As foreseen by Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, the new age of the modern world revolves around technology, which has led to an increasing dystopian society. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury writes of a dystopian society set in a future where the government attempts to control what people think by censoring books. Instead of allowing individual creativity and thoughts, the government provides mindless activities and fast-paced media to the public. Fireman Guy Montag, whose job is to burn books, has an encounter with a seventeen-year-old girl that opens his eyes to the problems and reality of their society. Realizing that he is dissatisfied and unhappy with his life, Montag begins to search for a solution in a secret pile of books that he has stolen from his own fires. After escaping government tracking, Montag finds a group of intellectuals who believes in original thought and unconformity. With their help, Montag goes back into the destroyed society in hopes of fixing humanity. Throughout the novel, Montag transforms his mindset to be more alert and question not only his life, but the dangerous concepts that the government promotes by technology. As maintained by Bradbury’s warnings about the dangers of a dystopian world in Fahrenheit 451, his predictions about current society are accurate. Life of citizens in Fahrenheit 451 and today’s society have become more insignificant and shallow, due to a decline in mental health assistance, a lack of emotional bonds in relationships, and a higher demand for faster, surface-level enjoyment.

In Fahrenheit 451, the mental health of citizens is put aside and suicide is a common matter, similar to today. One example of this is the decline in sense of empathy for others, especially around the topic of suicide. In Fahrenheit 451, the operator says, “We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built” (13). The way that the operator tells Montag about the normal recurrence of suicide everyday, and the machines specially built for reviving victims shows that suicide is very common for them, and they could not care less that their patients attempted to take their lives. Along with Mildred’s overdose on pills, a fireman kills himself, and the old woman set herself on fire. Bradbury’s repetition of suicide contributes to the bleak and empty tone of the novel. After Mildred overdoses and the machines revive her back to life, Montag has a realization that society is ignorant to the fact that citizens are willing to trade their unfulfilled lives with death. Failing to prevent suicide, the public proceeds without looking back on the tragedies of many. This proves that Fahrenheit 451’s society disregards the significance of humanity because there is no urgency to support each individual.

Bradbury’s prediction of increasing suicide rates in modern day are accurate and proven with modern research. According to The Suicide Rate for Young Adults has Tripled Since the 1950s, “In the 1950s, there were only 7.5 suicides per 100,000 students. Today, 1 in 12 students have made a suicide plan.” Compared to Bradbury’s time in the 1950s, the rate of suicide has gone up tremendously, especially in teens. With the rise of technology creating less time to spend with others, more individuals are found to feel lonely and empty. This unpleasant state of mind make life seem more meaningless, and as a result, more people are inclined to take their lives. The unhappiness within Montag’s society and the idea that life has no true meaning are the results of many of the same factors that people in modern day face, such as lack of communication due to screens and media. The thoughts of loneliness and emptiness in one’s life affects the increasing rate of suicide in modern day society and Fahrenheit 451’s society, which is accurately predicted and warned by Bradbury.

The lack of passionate love and care in relationships is predicted by Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451. In Bradbury’s society, many parents and children have no connection with each other, as well as husbands and wives. Bradbury writes, “There was a tiny dance of melody in the air, her Seashell was tamped in her ear again and she was listening to far people in far places, her eyes wide and staring at the fathoms of blackness above her in the ceiling” (39). Mildred appears to be withdrawn and distant when Montag is in the room, and she is always listening to mindless broadcasts with her earbuds. Bradbury is warning that technology can be very dangerous, and can decrease human interaction, which is a major aspect of life. The love between Mildred and Montag is not there, because Mildred is always in her own virtual reality world. The strain on their relationship is similar to many couples today, due to technology distracting time for communication.

Today, many lovers are plugged into a virtual realm, unaware that relationships take time and energy for good communication. If they are unable to meet these standards, there is a higher rate of divorce for a couple. According to Technoference: How Technology Can Hurt Relationships, Brandon McDaniel writes, “We found that women who reported more technoference in their couple relationship also reported more conflict over technology use, lower relationship satisfaction, more depressive symptoms, and lower life satisfaction.” This shows that the constant need to check social media or other platforms can create tension with the connection between two people in a relationship. When one’s partner chooses technology over them, it can lead to a feeling of being unloved and undesirable, which can lead to divorce. Divorce is a common end to relationships, where there are so many interruptions in time spent together that the relationship appears to standstill. Similar to Mildred’s constant need to zone out her relationship and reality, many couples in relationships today have troubles keeping a healthy, interactive connection.

In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury predicted people would gain happiness through surface-level entertainment by technology over novels. Entertainment by technology, such as listening to broadcasts by Seashells and watching TV parlor families, creates a lack of communication and promotes violence. Bradbury illustrates, “Abruptly the room took off on a rocket flight into the clouds; it plunged into a lime-green sea where blue fish ate red and yellow fish…Two minutes more and the room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena, bashing and backing up and bashing each other again. Montag saw a number of bodies fly in the air” (90). This describes the violent, frenetic activity that citizens in Fahrenheit 451 society watches on TV walls. The high excitement Mildred gets from her parlor shows takes over her real life, and she starts to love her TV family more than her real family. Montag realizes that the entertainment that his society watches promotes a violent world, and that there is no value to life. The government creates these pointless shows give off the message that violence is a pleasurable amusement. The higher demand for this fast-paced satisfaction establishes the idea that life is valueless.

Bradbury also warned about the threat of digital simulations, which can substitute for critical thinking. In today’s society, addiction to social media exacerbates a scattered, shallow thinking of individuals. The author of Social Media Addiction, Jena Hilliard, reports, “Social media use becomes problematic when someone views social networking sites as an important coping mechanism to relieve stress, loneliness, or depression. For these people, social media use provides continuous rewards that they’re not receiving in real life, and end up engaging in the activity more and more.” To relieve these undesirable moods, many people depend on social media to cope, which leads to an addiction. The continuous use of this leads to ignoring real relationships and responsibilities, as well as physical health. Similar to Mildred, social media users today rely on screen time to distract them from social interaction, which amounts to depression and unstable moods. By not connecting on any meaningful level with others, attempting to find happiness in meaningless entertainment leaves one ultimately empty. The addiction and demand for screen time to cope with one’s life is an example of what Bradbury predicted in this modern, dystopian world.

In conclusion, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 reflects current society because the use of technology that he warned about has turned into reality. Although having written the book in 1953, Bradbury accurately predicted that social isolation, depression, and an increase in the rate of suicides would be a problem of modern day society. He also predicted families would struggle loving one another without distractions by technology, which is proven a true event by today’s reports. In Fahrenheit 451, when Montag found Granger and the book people, he realizes that these men do not conform to society’s standards and he recognizes that society has become a slave to technology. With the help of the book people, Montag begins to start fixing humanity, by sacrificing his previous life in order to find a new life. The message that Ray Bradbury wanted to share by writing this book is the idea that books benefit society because they challenge individuals to imagine and stay away from conformity, unlike the oblivious, media-saturated world in Fahrenheit 451 that gives shallow stimulation for an unoriginal, hopeless society.

Works Cited

1. Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 60th Anniversary ed., New York, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2013. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
2. Brown, Dan. Angels and Demons. Pocket Books, 2019. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
3. Hilliard, Jena. Social Media Addiction – Addiction Center, edited by Theresa Parisi, AddictionCenter.com, 22 Aug. 2019, www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/social-media-addiction/. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
4. McDaniel, Brandon. Technoference: How Technology Can Hurt Relationships, Institute for Family Studies, 27 Jan. 2015, ifstudies.org/blog/technoference-how-technology-can-hurt-relationships. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.
5. The Suicide Rate for Young Adults has Tripled Since the 1950s. Inspire Malibu, 25 Feb. 2018. https://www.inspiremalibu.com/blog/dual-diagnosis/the-suicide-rate-for-young-adults-has-tripled-since-the-1950s/. Accessed 25 Nov. 2019.

A brilliant page turner for readers who love brilliant storyline and drama. Angels and Demons is an outstanding thriller, mystrey and crime fiction by Dan Brown, is also the writer who wrote “Da Vinci Code.’ The book has the same protagonist, Robert Langdon who is a professor and is set in the cobbled street of Europe and the Vatican City. The story is set in CERN (One of the biggest physics centers of the world) in Geneva, Switzerland where a physicist working on antimatter is killed by someone with the word Illuminati branded on his chest.

Antimatter in real life is the most highly rated substance, and it prices about 62.5 trillion dollars to make one gram of it and it must be preserved in cases where it cannot touch any matter or the process of annihilation would create a higher level of mess in strength than any atomic explosion. Robert Langdon a professor who is also well-known for his studies on Illuminati he is on a mission to find the murderer of physicist. He is attended by the physicist’s daughter with whom he ultimately falls in love.

An antimatter bomb with the antimatter stolen from the lab of the physicist is found in Vatican building where the cardinals from all around the world are gathering for the pope elections in the enclave however, the four pope have been kidnapped. Robert and his companion go through the streets of Vatican and Rome to stop the killer from murdering the last pope. The antimatter bomb has a timer which would set off the bomb which gives additional suspense to the story. The story is sometimes a bit loose and has too many details, problems take longer to solve as compared to Da Vinci Code. Overall, it’s highly recommended to anyone who loves a great thriller and also, it gives us information about the secret society Illuminati.

Writer tells about secret society Illuminati in this story how the elite and some powerful persons in the world use people for their purposes against some specific religions. The genre of this story are thriller, mystery and crime. The characters also developed by the writer done their part very good. Plot of this story is well structured scenes are not predictable and suspense are enough for any person. Story had many twists and the ending of the story is very unpredictable.

I am also the bigger fan of this story because the writer unmask the Illuminati agenda, and this story tells reality of this fantasy world. I am highly recommended reading this book and also see their movie.

Brown creates an invigorating novel concerning the uprising of an ancient satanic cult called the Illuminati. The word satanic however when used in context with the Illuminati simply means against the belief of Christ. While first trying to navigate their way through Vatican City; the main characters, Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra must also follow an ancient path of Illuminati history that snakes through Vatican City and ends in the sacred “Church of Illumination” where they must face the impending doom of a fatal scientific substance known as “Anti-Matter”. While Brown uses various literary elements to enforce the power of his work, by far in my opinion his use of the mysterious Illuminati assassins’ presence really tops off the book.

In Angels & Demons Brown includes a rather mysterious character of the book who he describes to be an Illuminati assassin. His past is saturated with descendants of the original assassins, first called the Hassassin. By including this information of the mysterious mans path he lets the readers know that this unknown enemy means business. The character that I chose is not the main character. However I chose the Illuminati assassin because I believe he adds a lot to the book and keeps the ball rolling throughout the story. In my opinion the killer is the most believable character in the book, solely by the way Brown describes his personality in the story “for him killing was like heroin . . . each encounter satisfying only temporarily before increasing his longing for more. The exhilaration had worn off. The craving had returned” (65). It’s these descriptive sentences of his personality throughout the story that make the killer a horrifyingly believable character. As the mysterious killer works to destroy the Vatican and Langdon and Vittoria seek to defend it the killer would be labeled one of the antagonists of the novel. Archetypal characters are considered standard character types such as hero, villain, lover, and helper. The killer in my opinion is an archetypal character in that he is a common villain. However I also think he is not an archetypal character in that he may be a common villain but Brown decorates his past with many interesting facts which make him a very unique villain. In the story Brown directly describes the killer as “a short mahogany skinned man”. I think Brown gave him as little description as possible so that people will begin to think that he is a rather shady individual. In the story the killer resembles a main cog in a complex network of gears in that the story Angels & Demons begins to unravel further as the killer makes his next move. When the killer steals the life of a citizen in the book the story begins to snowball from that point as everything gets worse and worse. At times in the book Brown would include a chapter that would hint away at what the next move of the killer was to be. By doing this a sort of fire would ignite within me as I plunged deeper into the novel trying to find out if Langdon and Vittoria had thwarted the killers next attempt to destroy Vatican City. In other words the mysterious killer was always the reason I would read a little further into the novel every night.

Angels & Demons portrays a fake attempt to destroy the Vatican by the Illuminati, fake Illuminati assassin, and fake characters in general. However the book portrays a very real existence of the Illuminati and they are considered the most powerful underground organization to ever exist. The conflict between the Vatican and the sciences is also a very real conflict. Brown however does a great job of making his novel seem very real. He uses all literary elements to help but the one I feel influences the novel the most is the character sketch of the mysterious killer.

Science and religion have been at odds since back in Galileo’s day and maybe even before. The battle rages on even today with debates on cloning and stem cell research. These issues can be seen not only today’s literary works but also in the works from the years past. Two great examples of the past and present are: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. Both deal with the issue of the roles that science and religion play. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a horror story written in 1831. It tells a tale of Victor Frankenstein’s obsession with playing God and creating a man and the consequences that come with it. Not only does the book reflect on Victor’s life and but also on the monster’s life and how it deals with the situations at hand. Angels and Demons is a suspense thriller written in 2000. Robert Langdon has been asked to help solve a murder mystery because it is believed that a secret society that he has studied called the illuminati are behind it. The story takes a ton of twist and turns that involve a container of antimatter, the Catholic Church and a dead priest’s secret. Even though both of these books were written in different times and with totally different plots they still both bring to light the battle between science and religion that may never diminish.

Victor Frankenstein is obsessed with his to attempt to create a human. He works on it constantly alienating friends and loved ones. His obsession is finally rewarded with success; he manages to create a monster. This is where Mary Shelley starts to bring in the lesson of playing God. When Victor looks at his creation, he sees what a horror he has created and how hideous a creature it is. “No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch”. Shelley shows that man cannot create things without messing it up. This is would not be the last time that scientist went to far to attempt to create perfection. In 1991 Michael Stewart wrote a story called Prodigy in which a man messes with his daughter’s DNA to make her smarter. However, she becomes a child that has evil genes. (Nelkin 35). This is another way authors show that man is not capable of imitating God.

These two books show very well what can happen when religion and science try to battle with each other. There are two types of extremes. Those that want to use advanced technology to expand into the realms of God and those that want to use their religious stance to stop technology from advancing. Frankenstein is blinded by his obsession to create life and the Carmerlengo Carlo Ventresca went to the extreme to punish those that he thought had disobeyed his religion even if it was his own father. Neither extreme is completely right and yet both sides tend to think that they have all the answers. It is a battle that has been going on for centuries and one that is not soon to be done.