Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” (Bradbury 52). In the novel, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, Clarisse McClellan and Mildred Montag are complete opposites in both personality and views in life. Clarisse, a seventeen year-old girl, meets Montag, the main character, on a late night stroll. Montag finds that she is peculiar in the way that loves life and nature, yet despises the current ways of the technological world. Mildred, Montag’s wife, is a poster child for this dystopian society. Mildred relies on technology to help her with normal everyday activities. While being complete polar opposites and outright

After meeting Clarisse, Montag starts to see all the cracks and broken pieces in the world. She helps him start to question his views on society and the modern world. By actually talking about nature and saying things such as “Bet I know something else you don’t. There’s dew on the grass in the morning” (Bradbury 9) she aids in the process of wiping the fog of technology from his eyes. One of the very first signs of change in Montag is see when he and Clarisse are walking in the rain “and then, very slowly, as he walked, he tilted his head back in the rain, for just a few moments, and opened his mouth…”(Bradbury 24). This foreshadows his change in thoughts, and actions once he sees more in the world. After a few encounters with Clarisse, he sees how different she and Mildred are. “How odd. How strange. And my wife thirty and yet you seem so much older at times. I can’t get over it” (Bradbury 23) This quote shows how Montag starts to see how Clarisse sees the world in such sophisticated and different ways than the adults in modern society ever will. Montag finally starts to doubt Mildred and her ways. Once Montag starts to have his own thoughts he becomes troubled saying “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 51). Mildred’s ignorance and disinterest in a death of a woman simply because “She was simple-minded” (Bradbury 51) gives Montag a twinge of anger, and sees how Mildred is actually simple-minded. He starts to see how his wife’s generic mind compares to those of books and Clarisse’s organic complicated