In this world society is different. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradburry, Mildred is the wife of the main character, Guy Montag. Society acts robotic, unfeeling, and self-centered all of the time. Mildred was just like all of these other people and society made her this way. A way Mildred is self-centered is she doesn’t care about anyone but herself. When Montag got sick she didn’t care at all; she said, “you’re not sick” “call him yourself”, and “get the door yourself”. Mildred didn’t even believe she was sick, she acted as if he were just a bug you swipe off your arm. When Montag would ask her to turn the television down she just wouldn’t do it. Mildred didn’t care that it was bothering Montag. Mildred went to school and they taught the children how to behaves, she behaves very self-centered. One reason Mildred is like a robot, or dehumanized to feelings and the world is she does exactly what society tells her to do. Mildred acts like a programmed robot. She acts just like everyone else . Everyone in society was taught to be like this at a very young age, in kindergarten. When they entered this grade they were …show more content…
She is dehumanized to everything it seems like. When Montag was concerned about clarisse, their neighbor, she wasn’t concerned at all. When Mildred told him about the death of Clarisse she said it with no concern, not caring what Montag would say. Mildred was uncaring when she was telling Montag about Clarisse being dead. She said “i meant to tell you.” and “whole family moved out somewhere, but she gone for good. I think she’s dead.” Mildred said all of this like it wasn’t unusual at all. She acted like she didn’t care how he would feel about this. This is un-feeling of her. The way Society is today and how the schools are made. They are taught to be thoughtless and unfeeling, Society is desensitizing
First, Mildred could be described as unfeeling. She does not care and is emotionless to everything that happens no matter what it is. In the novel, a woman kills herself in front of Montag, and because of this he is upset. Mildred’s response to this included, “She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have books, it was her responsibility, she should have thought of that.” She does not care that her husband is upset, and she doesn’t feel sorry or sad that someone died. Based on Captain
She is addicted to sleeping pills, absorbed in the shallow dramas played on her "parlor walls" (flat-panel televisions), and indifferent to the oppressive society around her. She is described in the book as "thin as a praying mantis from dieting, and her flesh like white bacon." Despite her husband's attempts to break her from the spell society has on her, Mildred continues to be shallow and indifferent. After Montag scares her friends away by reading Dover Beach and unable to live with someone who has been hoarding books, Mildred betrays Montag by reporting him to the firemen and abandoning him.
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Mildred Montag’s life represents a body in a tomb, basically a “tomb world.” Mildred cuts herself off from the outside. This idea applies to Mildred who lets herself live in a world where she is almost gone, holding onto whatever the world gives to her. She is described as someone who just talks to talk, “He lay far across the room from her, on a winter island separated by an empty sea. She talked to him for what seemed a long while and she talked about this and she talked about that and it was only words, […] (39). There is a quote by Oscar Wilde that is very true to this book, “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” Mildred doesn’t have any substance to her, she lives in a world
...iety too, as seen in Mildred’s friends. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles are similar to Mildred, they say they voted on the last president simply for his looks. They don’t care about any of the important qualities only the superficial ones. Montag is further shocked when they talk so nonchalant about the war and their family’s, saying “(Insert quote here” (Bradbury ). This in addition, proves that not only is television addictive but can desensitize you from earthly troubles. Television allows you to step into a different world, and when Mildred’s friends are forced to come back from it, they cry and are angry. Montag forced them to comfort their disgraceful dismal of family ethics, decline of the upcoming war, and neglect of the high rates of suicide in their society.
Montag defines, “her face was like a snow-covered island upon which rain might fall, but it felt no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she felt no shadow” (13). Montag is describing how Mildred appears to him every day. This quotation proves that without books and knowledge (guidance) people in the society are unhappy, but they believe technology such as “parlor families” have the ability to keep them happy. Mildred symbolizes her society. This quotation supports depression in the society because the story clearly shows that the people are not pleased. Evidence is the fact that Mildred tried to commit suicide. If she were happy with her life and their society she would not have thought about committing suicide. “You took all the pills in your bottle last night” (19). Books not being a part of the society created a society in which everything is bad, a frightening place in the world. Mildred’s society is a dystopian society where everyone who does not have knowledge is suffering depression, they are devastating. Another example that proves that citizens in the society are depressed is when Montag feels that Captain Beatty wanted to die because he did not even try to move and purposely let Montag kill him. Evidence for the text is “he lay where he had fallen and sobbed, his legs folded, his face pressed blindly to
In addition to unawareness, abnormal relationships develop in the society because without books one couple may struggle in communication. After Beatty’s visit Mildred concluded Montag’s question “My ‘family’ is people. They tell me things: I laugh, they laugh! And the colors!”(75). Mildred feels her family is just people as if she thought people were just objects roaming around the earth.
Within the many layers of Montag lay several opposite sides. For example, Montag is a fireman who burns books for a living but at home, spends time reading novels, poetry, and other written material. Although Montag could be called a hypocrite, he does not enjoy both the reading and the burning at the same time; he goes through a change that causes him to love books. Humans have the power to change and grow from one extreme to another, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In addition, when Mildred is with Montag, Montag does not have feelings for her but thinks of her as she is killed by the bombs. He possesses both the knowledge that Mildred does not love him and the heart that truly cares, but he knows not how to deal with this. His feelings are oppressed; it takes a major event (the bomb) to jolt them from hibernation.
First, Mildred is unfeeling when she didn’t care that a woman had burned herself to death. A quote from the story is “She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have had books. It was her responsibility, she should have thought of that.” Mildred is unfeeling because society has made her believe that if it doesn’t affect her it doesn’t matter.
Throughout the book, the focus on technology in a society is shown; Clarisse and Mildred both have different perspectives on their society’s technology. For instance, Clarisse does not watch the parlor walls because she rather be thinking. As Clarisse is walking with Montag, Clarisse reveals that she “rarely watches the ‘parlor walls’” and the other normal teenage things meaning she has “lots of time for crazy thoughts” (Bradbury 9). This shows that Clarisse doesn’t spend her free time watching the parlor walls. Mildred, on the other hand, is the opposite where she spends most of her time watching the parlor walls. When Montag, Mildred’s husband, is getting ready for work she talks about a play she is doing, and says how the play would be
To explain the first similarity, the author of this paper will review how Mary and Mildred’s lives were changed. In Fahrenheit 451, Mildred finds out Montag
Mildred is a stereotypical character who only knows what the government and other people tell her. "And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios
She is unaware of everything happening outside of her walls. Also, when Montag gets home she does not even communicate with him, she is sleeping with her “seashells,” or small radios, in her ears. In other words, Mildred’s entire day consists of watching and living with her “parlor walls” to the point where that is all that matters to her. Life itself does not matter to her. For example, Mildred has just had a third wall installed and she insists on getting a fourth one, even though Montag tells her that “‘ it is one-third of his yearly pay and they are still doing without some things because of the installation of the third wall.’” Mildred does not care how much it costs and what she has to sacrifice, she wants the fourth wall because this is what matters to her in life. Her life does not matter to her and neither does her husband’s life. Because of the parlor walls, she is alive, but at the same time she is also dead because she no longer analyzes and thinks about anything around her. Like the rest of this dystopian society, Mildred is alive with an empty, or dead,
She does not express her views of the world since she spends her days watching and “communicating” with the parlor walls. Because of this, she is very forgetful of personal events and careless of others. Bradbury 40, Montag thinks back to when he and Mildred first met. “The first time we met, where was it and when?” “Why it was at-” She stopped. “I don't know,” she said. Also in Bradbury 49, Mildred states, “..let me alone. I didn't do anything,” as Montag shares his book conflict. This shows how Mildred lacks in thinking and considering the feelings of others. Therefore, she is the opposing side of the theme of the
The first reason why Mildred is a bad wife is because she is self centered because society took out personality. In the story “Fahrenheit 451”, The captain to Montag’s squad, Beatty, states “... Fill them with enough useless information to where they feel like they're thinking, they’ll have a sense of motion without moving.” Mildred is shocked full of this useless information, that she thinks she’s thinking. (i went off subject) Mildred made the quote, “She’s nothing to me!” to Montage(her husband/ main character) over what he saw, or how she looked like. It takes a lot to just live with the fact to watch someone die. But it truly takes someone heartless to not care at all. Society took out personality so people can no longer have hearts. But
all she wanted to do was learn their ways and help them. Her reputation was that she isn’t supposed to be there because she is a girl and doesn’t really understand what she’s supposed to do, according to the men that already work there. Yank doesn’t even see her because he is so focused on his work. Evidence is, “She was all white. I tought she was a ghost. Sure.” (O’Neill, 1929, p. 20) When Yank saw Mildred she looked afraid and not sure of what she was supposed to be doing, and that’s why he said she looked like a ghost. He knew that she didn’t quite understand the ropes of the stockhole and he honestly didn’t care how he acted towards her. Yank’s attitude towards Mildred made her think that she wasn’t important enough to be in the stockhole. just because she wasn’t a man like everyone else. Yank believed that she shouldn’t be working down there because she’s a woman. He scared her away, with all his yelling and acting obnoxious. She was definitely not welcome in the stockhole.