Character Influenced In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Every day we run into something or someone that influences us in some way. It could be someone performing an act of kindness, your group of close friends telling you to do something, or even an advertisement you see on your way to work. It could be something so small and seemingly insignificant or something that turns your whole world upside down. No matter the size of impact, they are all things that can influence us. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the main character, Guy Montag, evolves throughout the story because he is influenced by the people he meets throughout the book. Some of the people that influence him are not even main characters, but they were super important in his character development. Fahrenheit 451 is an exceptionally

Montag's wife, Mildred, is the representation and embodiment of what society has come to. The relationship between Mildred and Montag is very cold and distant and there is little to no love there at all. This can be inferred from page 44 “And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry”. Due to the shell of a person Mildred is, and their disconnected relationship, Montage starts to realize there is no connection towards people anymore. Everyone is wrapped up in the “parlour families'' being too busy to even let an individual thought form. Through Mildred, Montag realizes that society is failing and due to the censorship and conformity, no one has the knowledge to know it. At the end of the book, Mildred inevitably betrayed him and called in the alarm that Montag had books. This event concludes Mildred's part in helping Montag become enlightened. Captain Beatty, Montag’s superior in the firehouse, is the antagonist of the novel. He has a position of power and major influence in their society. Before Montag became more curious about books, Beatty was an influence that helped Montag love his job and believe that burning books was the right thing to do. However, the more interested and informed Montag got, the more Beatty’s influence did the opposite of what he intended. During Captain Beatty’s visit near the end of Part One: The Hearth and

Clarisse, Montag’s new young neighbor, is a very important part in Montag’s self-actualization. When Montag first met Clarisse he thought she “was an odd one” (pg. 8) and that she “thinks too many things” (pg. 9). She bombards him with questions and knowledge that Montag finds strange and intriguing. At the end of their first meeting, Clarisse asks Montag “Are you happy?” (pg. 10), which he thinks he is, but upon further considerations, he realizes he is not really happy, he’s just pretending to be. When Montag thinks “How long had they walked together? Three minutes? Five? Yet how large that time seemed now. How immense a figure she was on the stage before him;...” (pg. 11), it shows the impact that Clarisse had on him even after a short first interaction. Clarisse continues to fill his thoughts as he tries to figure her out or understand what her and her family talk about when they stay up with the lights on and just talk. Every time they met, she would talk and ask questions and Montag would listen and answer. Eventually Montag would even listen to her. When she said there was a man in the moon, he’d look up to see, when she said rain tastes good, “he tilted his head back in the rain, for just a few moments, and opened his mouth…” (pg. 24). Clarisse not only influenced his intellectual awakening, but even small silly things. The