ipl-logo

Unhappiness In Guy Montag's 'Mausoleum'

233 Words1 Pages
In society, people tend to hide their feelings, if they are too difficult to accept or will emotionally hurt them. In the excerpt, “Mausoleum”, Ray Bradbury emphasizes the death and unhappiness in Montag’s life in order to reveal his true feelings of unhappiness and disconnection that he has from his wife in her superficial world.
In this excerpt, Montag is trapped in a suicidal relationship that has left him dispirited and empty. Montag believes his bedroom is a “mausoleum”; it is so frigid and dark that it is a place where dead people lay. The author uses the metaphor to compare his bedroom to a mausoleum, in the thought that a bedroom is a place of warmth and liveliness rather than a place that is unwelcoming and depressing. In Guy Montag’s
Show More
Related
763 Words | 4 Pages

Guy Montag as a Dynamic, Three Dimensional Character “Are you happy?” (Bradbury 10). This quotes is taken from the science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, which is written by Ray Bradbury. It encompasses the struggle that society faces as characters such as Montag -the confused fireman,-

Read More
689 Words | 3 Pages

Guy Montag is another individual who goes against society to create his own tranquility. Instead of following society’s rules of burning books as a fireman, he secretly collects stolen books, “He carried the books into the backyard and hid them in the bushes near the alley fence” (Bradbury 98). Montag believes that books are of value, “Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes” (Bradbury 70). He rejects the way society reject books by rebelling against society and becomes a fugitive, “Police Alert.

Read More
479 Words | 2 Pages

Bradbury justifies to warn us that isolation from others lead to suicide because of all the influence of technology that was brought into their dark, dystopian, book-despising world. Technology took over everyone from their new “Wall-TV’s” to the “seashell,” being what they spend all their time on everyday, cutting off most interaction with other humans, leading to the thoughts of suicide. Early in the book, readers notice several attempts of people trying to kill themselves as well as each other; because the audience notices that they know they are not in a content state with all the things going on around them, especially the lack of socializing. There are many situations where Montag sees and realizes that a lot of people are losing their

Read More
733 Words | 3 Pages

Bradbury portrays how Montag’s perception of fire and burning books with his personal development changes by the different choices he makes throughout the novel. In the beginning of the book, Montag has a great passion and

Read More
386 Words | 2 Pages

At the end of the novel, Montag is not in the best place in his life. He was talking to Faber and he said, “this is happening to me” (108).

Read More
674 Words | 3 Pages

The bomb-ravaged city may never return to its former glorious structure from the ravaged wasteland that it is known. But, for some peculiar reason, Montag liked it better this way. The only thing he disliked about the wasteland is the burnt bodies the group of intellectuals come across every so often. They bring back horrible memories to him about the old lady that was burnt because of the firemen. Montag shuddered at the memory trying to shake it away.

Read More
309 Words | 2 Pages

When it comes to domestic atmosphere, the worldviews of the two characters differ considerably. Montag appears to be oblivious to his surroundings the majority of the time, as this has become the social norm. Arriving home, Montag gets the same sensation as a "cold marbled room of a mausoleum"; a lackluster simile to hint to the reader of the home's silence. This is further emphasized by Bradbury's description of the residence as "complet[ly] dark," which depicts Montag's dull life. When Montag walks into the room, he finds "his wife on the bed... like a body... of a tomb," a zombifying simile for how people have become in the future.

Read More
155 Words | 1 Pages

(Bradbury, 48) After having to experience firsthand a woman burning herself with her books, Montag begins to feel guilty and bothered from this women actions. This event has caused Montag to feel uneasy, but it is very important because this uneasiness has forced Montag to think. He begins to question the society he lives in and his life. It is, at this event, where Montag interest of books came from.

Read More
428 Words | 2 Pages

Their names lept into the fire, burning down the years under the axe and hose which sprayed not water but kerosene” (Bradbury page 31) The statement made in the book explains, how Montag felt about burning books and how he felt he was ruining what was once a good world. Guy had found many flaws in the utopian system starting with the way people had used their time while those who did not spend it consumed with a fake world were often seen as strange and peculiar rather than just normal everyday people. Death was normal to the people living in this world which is rather alarming and shows the darkness that underlies in the depressed society, “Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks…” (Pg.27)

Read More
1072 Words | 5 Pages

While death is permanent, life continues to change. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag demonstrates this idea as each time the motif of death appears, Montag’s perception of the world is distorted. The deaths of three very influential figures in Montag’s life allow Bradbury to push Montag to his limits. On each occasion where death is present, a change occurs in the way Montag processes the intricate workings of society’s influences on his life; and he begins to become more rebellious and self-aware.

Read More
228 Words | 1 Pages

Guy Montag, the protagonist of this story, held a position of power in a society that was brainwashed by electronic propaganda. As a fireman, he burned books, an outlawed form of media, that were in the possession of those that had been storing them illegally. However, after years of being tucked under a facade in which he is satisfied with his job and personal life, Guy started to unravel the reality of his surroundings. Montag began to look into the literature that he had been employed to destroy for nearly two decades in secret.

Read More
999 Words | 4 Pages

All that Montag wants is to make the community realize why books are important. How books can help us. Also, how books can make us feel some type of emotion. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 states how Montag read a poem to Mrs. Phelps which she is one of Mildred’s vapid friends. As Montag was reading her that poem Mrs. Phelps began to cry.

Read More
1028 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the Novel, in Fahrenheit 451 Montags encounters with the parlor walls develops the idea of ignorance is bliss. Montag interacts with the ideas of the parlor walls first hand with his wife Mildred. Mildred is undoubtedly enarmed by the parlor walls. ”Will you turn the parlor off?...

Read More
515 Words | 3 Pages

(Bradbury 8). Montag is faced, for the first time, with having to examine his life and if he is actually happy. It destroys his “mask”, allowing him to see the problems of his life, and, more importantly, society. The new perspective “kills” a part of him, the part that was content with his perfect life (having a good,

Read More
251 Words | 2 Pages

The concept of leisure in Montag’s world is associated with mindless activities and distractions. The culture in “Fahrenheit 451” provides people with a “sense of motion without moving” (Bradbury 61) and solid entertainment that satiates the desire for pleasure and titillation (59). Distractions are prevalent in Montag’s society as they keep people moving so they do not face reality. As a result, the inhabitants hide their depression with a guise of happiness. For example, Mildred enjoys driving at insane speeds to avoid feeling unhappy and is dependent on parlor wall programmes that depict violence (64).

Read More

More about Unhappiness In Guy Montag's 'Mausoleum'

Related Topics

Open Document