It is clear that what the machine operators tell Montag
about the high incidence of attempted suicide attempts reveals the way in which the
dumbed down form of society that the novel presents us with, where books are illegal and
citizens are encouraged to engage in forms of entertainment that only serve to expose
the emptiness and meaninglessness of their lives, is resulting in people lacking lives
of depth, significance and meaning. Note what 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. With the optical lens fo course, that was new; the rest is
ancient. You don't need an M. D., case like this; all you need it two handymen, clean up
the problem in half an
hour.
The suicide attempts
are clearly linked to the changes in society, and the fact that they get so many "cases"
like this every single night that they have had to invent new machines to cope with it
points towards the deep unhappiness of so many of the populace. The case of Mildred is
obviously the norm rather than the exception.
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