Fahrenheit 451 Desensitized Society

Matthew Roach
Mrs. Johnson
3
02 March 2023
Analysis Essay
In the dystopian novel, “Fahrenheit 451”, the author Ray Bradbury creates a society in which books were burned and people lost their sense of humanity and became desensitized. The main character, Montag, slowly begins to question his world after meeting Clarisee, who is considered to be an outcast in their society. Clarisee serves as a foil to Montag to show the desensitized nature of society and show the loss of humanity in society, in order to show the dangers of distractions.
For starters, Clarisee foils Montag to illustrate the desensitized nature of society. Compared to Montag, she is an abnormal person who is rejected by society. Instead of living a life full of distractions, she

Clarisee is saying that Montag doesn’t take the time to stop and think, foiling herself and him to show the wicked nature of their world. Another example would be when Clarisee tells Montag she “rarely [watched] the ‘parlor walls’ or go to races or fun parks”, indicating how society is so attuned to distractions, they’ve become desensitized in any other form of living (Bradbury 9). Another instance of Montag and Clarisees differences is when she told him “‘[she] [is] afraid of children [her] own age. They kill each other”(Bradbury 30). This shows how Montag and society have become desensitized as killing doesn’t bother them compared to Clarisse. Her and Montag’s differences are used to show the desensitized nature of their

For instance, when talking to Montag about how she was scared of children, she mentions that “six of [her] friends have been shot in the last year alone. [And] ten of them died in car wrecks. [She’s] afraid of them and they don’t like [her] because [she’s] afraid” (Bradbury 30). With Montag representing the rest of society, Clarisse illustrates how inhumane their world is. She shows how society is cruel by demonstrating the tragedies that have occurred recently. Another example would be when Clarisse told him there was a man on the moon, but “[Montag] hadn’t looked in a long time” (Bradbury 9). The stark difference between these two characters and how they live again illustrates the inhumane nature of their society. People never take the time to really look at or appreciate anything. Another case of this is when Clarisse was talking to Montag about how drivers never take the time to really look at anything. She tells him how she “[thinks] drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly” (Bradbury 9). This is another example of how inhumane their society is and how people, such as Montag, never take the time to observe or cherish the world around them. The differences in how Montag and Clarisse view the world serve to the show the messed up view of their