The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.
Of all characters, Bradbury uses Mildred Montag to effectively portray the idea that the majority of society has taken happiness as a refuge in nothing but passive, addictive entertainment. She immediately reveals her character early in the book, by saying, “My family is people. They tell me things: I laugh. They laugh! And the colors!” (73). Mildred is describing her parlors, or gigantic wall televisions, in this quote. Visual technological entertainment is so important in her life that she refers them to as “family,” implying the television characters as her loved ones. By immersing herself in an imaginary world, Mildred finds herself able to relate to fake characters and plots, giving her a phony sense of security. This is necessary for her to achieve her shallow happiness, or senseless plain fun, as she lifelessly watches other people in her walls with a senseless mind. Her family in real life only consists of Guy Montag, her husband, whom she has no fond feelings about. Montag is so frustrated with Mildred because of her inability to express feelings for ...
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...ellect, free-thinking, and curiosity in the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451.
Ray Bradbury carefully implements these four important characters to bring a new outlook of life to the reader. Both the branches of Mildred and Faber might lead to joy, but the effects operate in polar contradiction. Though parlor entertainment and books can both allow a reader to place themselves in an imaginary world, the message in books can ultimately improve life, while parlor walls can destroy it upon fiction that consumes the mind. Bradbury essentially questions the foundation of life by defining what happiness should be based on. He is asking reader whether our lives are contracted on fantasy and materialistic desires like that of Mildred, or whether they convey the intellectual power of freedom, knowledge, and wisdom gained from experience that we are afforded as human beings.
Bradbury uses Mildred, Guy Montag’s wife, to illustrate how technology dominates a person’s life. Mildred refers to the three-walled TV as her family. Mildred replaces, mistreats, and ignores Montag even though he attempts to assist her. Technology makes her so blind that even the bonds of love, friendship,
Mildred and her society are pretty peculiar. In the story Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Mildred and her society are crazy and do things completely different. This society has made Mildred self-centered, robotic, and unfeeling.
There are two different types of people in the world, those who follow the rules and those who do not. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes about a futuristic time period where people no longer read books. Not only do they not read anymore but it is illegal. In this town the government controls what their people learn, and how they must think. In Ray Bradbury 's novel, Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury creates the stereotypical character, Mildred who does not think for herself versus Clarisse, a character who is not afraid to question things and who constantly challenges society.
Mildred Montag, Guy’s wife, is a faultless illustration of people in current society. Along with the fact that she hardly leaves her parlor, she always wants more! “‘How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It’s only two thousand dollars’” (Bradbury 18). ...
Happiness: an idea so abstract and intangible that it requires one usually a lifetime to discover. Many quantify happiness to their monetary wealth, their materialistic empire, or time spent in relationships. However, others qualify happiness as a humble campaign to escape the squalor and dilapidation of oppressive societies, to educate oneself on the anatomy of the human soul, and to locate oneself in a world where being happy dissolves from a number to spiritual existence. Correspondingly, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Krakauer’s Into the Wild illuminate the struggles of contentment through protagonists which venture against norms in their dystopian or dissatisfying societies to find the virtuous refuge of happiness. Manifestly, societal
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.
On the other hand, Mildred is the selfish gold-digger everyone would consider “normal”. 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?”
Author Ray Bradbury uses characterization and figurative language to demonstrate that when happiness is forced, people become ignorant of their emotions. People believe they’re happy, but are pretending and showing that their fake happiness is a disguise to unhappiness. Throughout the novel, Bradbury describes the society’s happiness as a superficial happiness that avoids problems by watching television all day long. When Clarisse asks Montag a question right before she leaves for their first meeting, she asks, “‘Are you happy?’
In the essay Why Happiness, Why Now? Sara Ahmed talks about how one’s goal in life is to find happiness. Ahmed begins her essay with skepticism and her disbeliefs in happiness. She shows her interest in how happiness is linked to a person’s life choices. Ahmed also tries to dig deeper, and instead of asking an unanswerable question, “what is Happiness?” she asks questions about the role of happiness in one’s life.
Mildred is a character that blends in with the crowd. She is part of the majority of the people who are distracted throughout their lives. She does not interact the way people do today all due to the distractions surrounding her. The TV is one big distraction within their home. They all drive their cars too fast because if they don’t they will have time to think. If they have time to think then their emotions will kick in and that is what the government does not want. When someone’s husband or wife dies they are told not to cry or be sad, and just get up and move along and find a new one. Mildred wears her earphones to bed so that she will not think while she is asleep. The earphones are constant distractions that make you focus on something else rather than how you feel. Mildred has even gotten to a point where she can read lips so she can keep listening to her earphones. Montag describes Mildred, “ …the body as thin as a praying mantis dieting, and her flesh like white bacon” (Bradbury 46). Not only did she look thin and white but her hair also looked unpleasant. Mildred’s hair seem breakable and straw like from chemicals. This is what the people look like if they do not focus and are constantly distracted. Montag on the other had is not like the normal people in the book Fahrenheit 451. In the beginning he is forgetful like most of the people. Montag says, “Funny, how funny, not to
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
...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.
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
He shows us that we will get so advanced in technology and forget about the things around us. One of the things Bradbury had predicted was the seashell radio, no one in Montag’s society knew about this technology because they were blinded by the parlor walls. This is one of the technologies that will advance and take over society, this technology was introduced by faber stating “It looks like a Seashell Radio.” “and something more! It listens!” (87) Mildred proves to us that the addiction to the parlor walls can affect how she handles situations, like the time when Montag told Mildred not to tell anyone about the books, because she afraid of the censorship and didn’t want to lose her so called “family” she had turned in the alarm. Montag asked Beatty saying, “Was it my wife turned in the alarm?” Beatty nodded” (111). Bradbury predicted how society will end up, not knowing or caring for others, technology getting more advanced, and being a very aggressive society due to an isolation of books and addiction to parlor
But in this debate, one question still raises its head - What is happiness? Happiness is not actually leading a luxurious life, but the luxury of living a life. Happiness is not actually about expanding your business, but it lies in expanding the horizons of life. Happiness is not having a meal in the most famous restaurant, but having it with your most beloved family. It does not lie in attending honorable parties, but to attend a party with honor.