Mildred's Characterization In 'Fahrenheit 451'

Fahrenheit 451 is a novel that discusses a utopian civilization were books are prohibited and the firefighter’s jobs are to burn books. Guy Montag our main character is our main character and he is married to Mildred Montag, a unique woman obsessed with her television soap operas, a clown that lets her cope with her depression, and gadgets that do everything for her. Mildred represents the stereotypes had in that society, such as conformity, propaganda and consumerist ideals. In the story Mildred is described as a small woman with pale white skin, eyes with kind cataract reddened pouting lips and a hair filled with chemicals and hair dye. Mildred’s scrawny physical traits symbolize all the diets and artificial beauty that women had to go through

Mildred’s constant addiction to gadgets represents her denial towards her problems and the little desire she has towards a better life. Her ignorance is another of her great weaknesses since she lives in a world where her feelings don’t matter and is easily influenced by tv and propaganda which explains her obsess towards hair dye and a soap opera family, even when Guy tries to talk to her all she seems able to talk about is her “family”, he tries to talk to her into reading some of the books he has found but she’s just worried that Captain Beatty might show up and “burn the house and the ‘family’” and asks him “why should I read?” “what for?” (34, Bradbury). Mildred doesn’t understand what she’s feeling and therefore prefers little amounts of superficial happiness that only give her joy for a little while, instead of reading and exterminating her ignorance because she’s too afraid to understand what is really happening inside of

Her obsession grew so much that she was putting her entire salary on buying a forth wall-TV, even when her husband was still trying to pay for the third one. As a side effect of her obsession we can also see a certain type of constant memory loss, for example when she forgot that she tried to commit suicide or yet again the fact that it had only been two months since they had bought the third tv screen, "We 're already doing without a few things to pay for the third wall. It was put in only two months ago, remember?" "Is that all it was?" being the answer to his question (9, Bradbury), and the time Guy asked her if she remembered how they met and since she wasn’t able to remember she just tells him that “it doesn’t matter” (20, Bradbury)

Mildred character represents all the citizens that lived in this society, she represents the efforts that a woman had to make to be considered beautiful. The fear of knowing, the government has implanted into their citizens so that no one would have the need of something new and less shallow. The impact and influence excessive amounts of entertainment had on these citizens and last the idea of a cookie cutter community and the power consumerism has over