“A time to keep silent and a time to speak,” (158) is a quote from the book Fahrenheit 451. This novel is all about how people conform to a society that burns books. They do so because they make people “think” thoughts that the government doesn’t want them to. Though there are some who are not conformed and read books to enlighten themselves to the ways of the past, that changes the way they see the present. Mildred, Faber, and Clarisse are characters that represent different aspects of conformity or nonconformity in the Fahrenheit 451 society.
Mildred in the novel is Montag’s wife. She is the perfect example of a conformed person in this society because she is brainwashed by the tv that the government has set in place. Proof of such is when she said, " 'Books aren't people. You read and I look all around, but there isn't anybody!' ". (69) More proof is that she forgets important memories such as how she and Montag met; she also turned Montag in when he read a book to her friends. Mildred is the perfect conformed person in society unlike Faber, who is more in between.
Faber is an old professor who loves books, but has no intention of changing society to be able to read freely. He is slightly conformed in that way; although when Montag asks him to
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All of these different people affect Montag in different ways throughout the novel and make him who he is in the end of the book. They were all very important characters, even though we don’t always agree with everything that they did. There is a quote that describes how we should live our lives so that we don’t end up like the people in this novel. “Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal.”