"No. Not from wars"

“I’ve never known any dead man killed in a war. Killed jumping off buildings, yes, like Gloria’s husband last week, but from wars? No. Not from wars.” (Page 94, Millie)

This sentence seems to sum up everything that seems to be wrong with people in Fahrenheit 451. Throughout the book you constantly have this uneasy feeling that something’s very wrong, but you can never really place your finger on it until this quote. Do people no longer die from wars? Or have the people in this society merely grown so desensitized to what actually happens in war, and ignore the casualty figures? The second option seems much more likely, after all Mrs. Phelps said “Fourty-eight hours, they said, and everyone home. That’s what the army said.” It appears as if the country that this story takes place in is one of the world’s superpowers, most likely the U.S.A. They’re constantly at war against the world, but the average sheltered citizen never has to deal with any of that nasty business. Everyone is within their own little world, which they only come on out to interact with others out of sheer necessity. Is this really a world that you’d want to live in? No social interaction whatsoever, constantly bombarded with advertisements, and your nation always at war? Nobody in their right mind could agree to such a dire prospect, but it seems as if in this story the people have. Not only have they agreed to it, but they’ve embraced the concept completely. The problem however with living in your own little world is that once that bubble bursts, and you’re forced into the real world, there can be quite a shock…