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Fahrenheit 451 is a book written by Ray Bradbury. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman, but instead of starting fires, he puts them out. Montag’s wife, Mildred, expresses shallowness and mediocrity. She is completely immersed in technology and spends all of her time watching her “family” on television. She is addicted to sleeping pills and even overdosed on them in the beginning of the novel.
Montag questions his love for Mildred, and hers in return. He realizes that if Mildred were to die, he would not even be sad. All she seems to care about is her ‘family.’ When they try to remember when, where, and how they met [and realize they can’t remember], Montag starts to realize that he is in a loveless marriage.
As the technology seen in our society becomes stronger, our ability to be without technology has become weaker. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, the character known as Mildred is an illustration of this. Mildred is seen as someone who is addicted to the technology that she is presented with. Because of this addiction to screens and other devices, she has become both absent minded and clueless. With this in mind, I believe that our society will become populated with little Mildreds.
In this part of the book, all of the firemen including Montag received a call to burn a house with the books in there. Here became the turning point for Montag as he saw the woman, who already had made her decision to die rather than live in a world of oppression and restricted freedom of thought which books symbolize in this part, burns with the illegal books in the burning house, refusing to go out without the assurance of the safety of the books. We can suppose that his perception is gradually changing through the phrase showing that Montag felt a huge guilt over this, unlike the other firemen or Beatty. Furthermore, during the conversation with his wife, Mildred, Montag says, “We burn a thousand books. We burnt a woman.
(SIP-A): An interaction with Mildred’s friends pushes Montag to finally fight against society. (STEWE-1) Mildred invites her friends over so that they can watch the parlor. Montag comes in and sees what they are doing. They eventually start talking and the things they say leave Montag in disbelief.
(STEWE-2) Besides asking questions about society’s relationships, Montag questions further and starts asking about society’s rules on burning books after he experiences a woman burn with her books. He says to Mildred, “'There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there.'" (Bradbury 48). Montag, before, had blindly followed and enforced society’s rules about burning books.
Montag was never really happy with Mildred, his happiness was a mask he didn't know about. The mask had been taken off when Montag's true colors were shown. Mildred wasn't much of a wife, or friend, to Montag. Mildred was only an acquaintance to Montag, as Montag didn't feel devastated for long. ¨Mildred, leaning anxiously nervously, as if to plunge, drop, fall into that swarming immensity of color to drown in its bright happiness.¨ (Bradbury 152)
The first line of dialogue that Montag says is “it was a pleasure to burn”(pg. 1), which elucidates that he is just like the rest of the society. Bradbury introduces both of these characters as ignorant so the reader is able to draw a similarity between the way Montag is illustrated in the first page and how Mildred is characterized throughout the novel. This aids in tracing Montag’s coming of age journey because as he gets enlightened, the reader is able to distinguish how his mindset starts to diverge further away from Mildred’s. At the very end of the second chapter leading into the beginning of the third chapter, Beatty orders Montag to burn his own house, and as Beatty is speaking to Montag, Mildred runs past them “with her body stiff”(pg. 108). Through the employment of body language, Bradbury implies that Mildred is the one that turned Montag in to
Mildred could not accept what Montag was doing and kept thinking books were bad like how Kim Davis can not accept that gay marriage is
This choice of using technology to escape society does not allows Mildred to give herself any time to think about what Montag says, thus allowing society to get what it wants-thoughtlessness. Although Montag attempts forming a bond with Mildred over books, the idea fails because Mildred turns on him and does as she is told by the others around her. Montag includes mildred in one of his
This is until the day he meets Clarisse, who looks at the world in a different way than anyone else. Then, shortly after, he has to burn down a house full of books and burn the woman inside also because she refuses to leave. This causes Montag to realize that books should not be burned and have great significance in the world. He then shows his wife the abundance of books that he has collected from his job, and his wife, Mildred, becomes concerned. This later causes her to make up lies to cover the fact that Montag is breaking the law of owning books.
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury displays the idea that family and giving them love and attention is very important, and that being knowledgeable can make a huge difference in your life, but it can also have a negative effect; this becomes clear to readers when many people in the society, including Montag experience this and some are able to notice it and try to change it for the better while others don 't give it the attention it needs. In part 1, Bradbury illustrates the idea that family is very important. They deserve love and attention-more than most other things in their lives. Montag and his wife, Mildred, are a great example of this. Mildred focuses her attention on her TV family instead of Montag, unlike Clarisse and her family.
Mildred in the novel is Montag’s wife. She is the perfect example of a conformed person in this society because she is brainwashed by the tv that the government has set in place. Proof of such is when she said, " 'Books aren't people. You read and I look all around, but there isn't anybody!' ".
When Montag reveals his hidden books to Mildred, she does not take time to understand them. “‘It doesn’t mean anything!’” (Bradbury 65). She, instead, worries about how it might affect her image if they are found out. “He could hear her breathing rapidly and her face paled out and her eyes were fastened wide” (Bradbury 63).
While Mildred’s characterization is an exaggeration, with today’s technologies she has become more relevant, relatable, and tragic. It is remarkable how much prescience Bradbury demonstrated in writing Fahrenheit 451. The Seashells Mildred uses resemble modern day earphones, and how she tunes out the world in favour of “an electronic ocean of sound” (19) predicted how people today would do the same while listening to music or podcasts on their mobile devices. Her TV walls are much like the numerous digital screens that permeate all parts of our lives and hold our attention. Or, the TV parlour and the scripted parts Mildred plays in the shows can be seen as an early concept for virtual reality video games.
