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Fahrenheit 451 Character Development Essay

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In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Montag, the protagonist is heavily impacted by a girl named Clarisse. Clarisse, only seventeen years old, is known for being antisocial, which the government requires her to see a psychiatrist about. Her thoughts on society lead her to question things, sharing them with Montag. This causes him to realize he lives in a world with complacent people. Clarisse also enjoys taking time to look at the simpler things in life such as taking time to admire the moon. As she shares the things she discovers, Montag also learns to take time to appreciate them. Even if they only knew each other briefly, her impact on Montag is shown through his changes and self-realization. Montag on the other hand is known for being the …show more content…

As time passes, he starts feeling a sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness. Montag’s character development is shown through Clarisse’s questions, her death and discovering the true meaning of caring. Clarisse’s questions' impact on Montag is evident through his responses and reactions. As Montag’s and Clarisse’s relationship grows, Clarisse starts to question Montag’s whole life, starting with his relationship with his wife to his occupation. This affects Montag as despite the questions generally being simple-minded, he begins to dig deeper into his responses and how he truly feels. Montag responds, “Happy! Of all the nonsense. He stopped laughing,” when Clarisse asks him if he is happy, a simple question which he never truly thought about (Pg.8). The society he lives in impacts his response the most as individualism is heavily discouraged there. Montag never had a chance to think of his feelings and what his true response would be because this is his world. It is a world where the government strives to be the only one in control. They …show more content…

Just as Montag and Clarisse were getting closer, she suddenly passes away which comes as a complete shock to him. “He had chills and fever in the morning,” Montag felt physically ill after hearing about the news of Clarisse’s death. He hears about her death from Mildred who supposedly forgot to tell him. He is taken aback by this and continues to question her as he can not seem to process this. This motivates him as he does not want to live a meaningless life where he will just die. He also wanted justice for her as she did not deserve to die at seventeen but that is the standard for the world he lived in. Montag ponders, “I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse! He wanted to run after them yelling. His eyes watered.” (Pg. 122). If Clarisse was just a person in his life who had no meaning, he would not have thought of her that fondly even after her death. These sentences show Montag still thinks of Clarisse as someone he cares about. His eyes were even watering from the thought someone had killed Clarisse on purpose. This indicates that he would have done anything for Clarisse and her influence caused him this pain. The tone of the text gives us a chance to understand Montag seems broken compared to his “perfect” life before. It shows he has evolved compared to his past self and is his own person now who is capable of feeling certain emotions. Montag demonstrates

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During the book, Clarisse plays an important part in Montag’s life by questioning his relationships with his job, wife, and happiness. First, Clarisse helps Montag realize that he is unhappy. On the first night, Montag and Clarisse met. Clarisse asks Montag if he is happy.

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To begin, At first montag is the average civilian living a normal life. He does what he needs to do to survive, all the while he knows something is missing. Before he met the life changing character Clarisse, he was conformed to society just like everyone else. However, Clarisse was the spark that grew the fire of knowledge in his heart. Then when he seen a woman rather be burned alive then to live without books the spark only grew.

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The hollow nature of Montag’s relationship with Mildred is clearly exposed when, in his separate bed, he lays thinking “that if she died, he was certain he wouldn’t cry”(41). Forced to acknowledge the emotional distance between them, Montag realizes that Clarisse was indeed right in her diagnosis of his marriage and accepts that he is not in love in light of his own true feelings as opposed to because of Clarisse’s words. Montag’s time with Clarisse was therefore, in actuality, beneficial as it aided him in growing to acknowledge the reality of his relationship with Mildred and thereby facilitated his evolution into greater cognizance of the quality of his

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She tells him that firefighting doesn’t seem right for him. This comment causes a reaction in Montag, “He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other” (pg 24). His reaction shows a conflict, that is causing emotion and thought. He begins to wonder why he isn’t happy.

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In the book Fahrenhiet 451 by Ray Bradbury the main character Guy Montag changes when he relizes that he was not happy after a conversation with his seventeen year old nieghboor Clarisse. In the society of Fahrenhiet 451 is a dystopian type of society. The government is burning books that do not follow their beliefs or are too “offensive” towards one group of people. People that do not fit in or are “anti-social” are brung to see a therapist or are killed. After Montag gets home from his job of being a fireman, he meets a seventeen year old woman named Clarisse.

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(STEWE-1): Clarisse has a big impact on Montag. She is the reason Montag saw an issue with the way he was living. When they first met, “she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. ‘Are you happy?’ she said” (7).

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Clarisse McClellan is the most significant character in the novel Fahrenheit 451. Clarisse plays a huge role in the storyline as she is the reason of Montag’s metamorphosis. She does this by making Montag question his surroundings, being a role model and changing Montag’s emotions towards others. Clarisse’s role and impact on Montag makes the most Important character.

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From one of his first experiences with Clarisse, Montag feels something that he realizes he never felt before in his daily life. He ponders to himself, "How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?" (Bradbury 8). What Montag is pondering about is how she behaved so attentive and natural towards

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He shares no personal information and directly avoids having any meaningful interaction with her. Contrastingly, Montag is very genuine towards Clarisse. She encourages him to question his world and everything he thinks he knows. Throughout many of their conversations, Montag has to, “pause and remember if he had previously known this, [which] made him quite irritable" her curiosity intrigues him and this is what begins his journey. Throughout the rest of the novel, Montag takes everything with a grain of salt and is skeptical of what he is told he should

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His responses to what she says are automatic like he was a programmed robot. Montag’s meeting with Clarisse gave him a reason to look around him harder as it was fascinating how she seemed like from another world, and she was. Clarisse was part of the real world and Montag wanted to be a part of that strange new world that was different from his own self-centered world. From there on, Montag continues to change his view of the world, but there was no one to share his view of the world after Clarisse had died. Montag knew that he had to pass on the truth of the society so he went to a memory of his first meeting with Faber who had first introduced books to him.

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Montag's mouth drying out may be a sign of his nervousness of conceivably covering up books due to Clarisse affecting that books are information and joy. Too, this effectively depicted Clarisse's will impact Montag since earlier to them meeting each other, he would burn life absent carelessly. Altogether, Montag's uncertain alter in his way of life is ascribed to his experience with a insane, youthful, 17 year ancient young

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Through the course of the book Montag learns he is lonely, unhappy and conflicted. Montag is usually stuck at home with his wife Mildred who ignores him all day or he is at work with the other fireman waiting anxiously for a call about someone with books. When Montag meets a 17 year old girl named Clarisse she opens his eyes up to the harsh reality of the world and makes him realize that he is unhappy with his life. At the beginning of the book he tells us “It never went away, that smile, it never went away, as long as he remembered.

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As Clarisse questions why Montag begins to think about his actions and how they affect people as well as society. The reader realizes Montag is a puppet in the dystopian society following the protocol as he is told by society. Montag’s inability to reason with what he is doing makes him gullible. Montag’s society would consider him dangerous within his society, but in reality he is escaping what is a dysfunctional.

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Befor Montag meets Clarisse, Montag sees himself as someone who has the power to manipulate the things around him and gets tremendous satisfaction from this, which is inferred in the quotation “his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning”.(3). Montag is a man divided against himself. He often experiences contradictory emotions and thoughts but Clarisse makes him feel safe and appreciated. The quote “he saw himself in her eyes … as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of violet amber that might capture and hold him intact”. infers that Clarisse has a calming effect on Montag.

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