Montag's Responsibility In Fahrenheit 451

In the novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, their are two significant characters called Montag and Mildred. Montag is the protagonist of the book and is a thirty-year-old in the twenty-fourth century. Montag’s responsibility as a fireman is to not save lives from burning buildings, but to burn the books he finds and burn the homes in which he finds them. Montag has a pleasure to burn anything he finds, too. He also has a wife name Mildred and Mildred is completely immersed to technology. She loves to go on her beetle and drive like a maniac, killing people and loves to watch a television clown. Mildred distances herself from real emotion by using technology everyday. She is also not compatible with her husband and over time, their relationship

When Montag tried to tell Mildred that “you took all the pills in your bottle last night”, she blatantly lied and told him, “Oh?, I wouldn’t do that” (17). Even though he thought that both him and Mildred was happy, he came home and saw Mildred’s lifeless body on the floor with pill bottles. When Montag tries to talk about it, Mildred was in denial and told him that she would never do that. Later, she just ask to get another wall which would allow her to submerge back to another world and not have the responsibility of being a human being. Montag then realized that his marriage was not as perfect as he thought it was. After Montag tries to talk about the incident with Mildred, Mildred asked to “get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall put in”, so she can watch more television (18). Montag was curious why would Mildred want to commit suicide ,so he asked her about it, but Mildred was in denial and rejected his claim. Mildred requested for a fourth wall and did not care about Montag’s pain which he endured watching her lifeless body on the floor. This caused Montag to be exasperated that Mildred would not discuss about herself during that incident. Montag truly cared about Mildred, but Mildred broke his heart and made him feel that “his chest was chopped down and split apart”