The problem is society’s views on books, and how that stifles freedom of speech and opinion, intentionally or unintentionally. Guy is able to take the initiative to try and change society because of Clarisse and her courage.…
1. The significance of Montag seeing his reflection in Clarisse’s eyes is that it shows that Clarisse is different. She is special. In this dystopia that Ray Bradbury has made, Clarisse is the one unique part of the society, the “flaw.”…
Clarisse is an odd seventeen year old who likes odd stuff including books. “well” she said, “I'm seventeen and I'm crazy” said Clarisse. This shows how naive and careless she is as she tells Montag, at this point a complete stranger to her. Clarisse so willingly tells Montag this might show that she doesn't think that deep. “There's a man in the moon” said Clarisse. She notices things that the majority people in her society do not. Clarisse also has different opinions and reactions towards thing, weather better or worse. Clarisse is a curious and adventurous seventeen year old.…
This hints at Montag’s identity crisis early on. In fact, Clarisse’s few lines have sparked the catalyst that will make Montag question his society’s character. As Clarisse acknowledges Montag’s differentness, Montag feels a conflict between his duty towards his society and his subconscious. He starts to sense wrongness in the society. When he feels his body divide into opposites, he begins to realize that although this dismal culture seems content, what meets the eye isn’t always true.…
He never even thought to mention or think about it until he met Clarisse. Most people in this time prefers to watch tv or have a good time. Clarisse is a very knowledgable 17 year old girl who is interested in other things beyond what the society around her is interested in, or being forced and limited to. She draws Montag into the life she has lived and became so interested in. Montag starts to genuinely become interested in the things that she are saying and starts to question and also wonder what is really going on around him. After the burning of a woman’s books, house, and also herself, he decides to see for himself. After realizing that everyone is on edge about him confiscating the book from the woman’s house, he then realizes that its not only the decreasing use of books in the society that is the issue but the content that they hold. A content that could possibly change lives band change how they…
“I’m antisocial, they say. I don’t mix. It’s so strange. I’m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social doesn’t it?..” Clarisse said this as an answer to why she wasn’t in school. They consider her antisocial for wanting to conversate on more than trivial information like the weather and what’s on the walls. Society feels the need to quiet her for having a mind capable of independent thought. The idea of deep thought and feelings scares society and this is very representative of our society…
One of the reasons Clarisse is alienated from society is because of her incredible curiosity of the world other than technology and likes of people gripped by the dystopian society. Clarisse didn’t conform to society’s norms; she let her imagination run free. For example, when she could be inside letting technology rule her life, she is outside playing freely, “The rain was thinning away and the girl was walking in the center of the sidewalk with her head up and the few drops falling…
The vibrant personality of Clarisse stands unlike anything Guy has ever seen, triggering the realization of how dead the human mind lays. For the first time, he begins to see a difference between his lifestyle and vitality itself. Proving herself different from others, Clarisse mentions, “I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly” (Bradbury 9). The furious driving above the speed limit stands to represent how life carries from one blur to the next, and how the moments in between to stop and look at detail, are few. No one has time for anyone else, showing no consideration to the aspects of life that carry great weight. Guy confirms the significance of books when his neighbor, Mrs. Blake, takes her life to represent how life without substance, isn’t life at all. Books represent the details in life which go unnoticed, provide the knowledge of personal relationships, and the intellectual reality that lay forgotten. After seeing such a lady go so quickly to something never thought more of than merely just a thing, “His hands were ravenous. And his eyes were beginning to feel hunger, as if they must look at…
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 features a fictional and futuristic firefighter named Guy Montag. As a firefighter, Montag does not put out fires. Instead, he starts them in order to burn books and, basically, knowledge to the human race. He does not have any second thoughts about his responsibility until he meets seventeen-year-old Clarisse McClellan. She reveals many wonders of the world to Montag and causes him to rethink what he is doing in burning books. After his talks with her, the society’s obedience to the law that bans knowledge, thinking, and creativity also increasingly distresses him. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury shows conformity in the futuristic America through schooling, leisure, and fright.…
Is it possible to go from someone who conforms, to becoming a full on individual? Is it safer for people to stick to their community’s ideas, beliefs and morals, or is it nice to have parts of them that make them stand out? In Fahrenheit 451, there are characters that stick to following the crowd, while Montag believes that having a little individuality can only benefit him. The author, Ray Bradbury reveals the theme that despite the fact that every character shows some form of conformity, Montag breaks out of the ordinary to become an individual.…
Throughout Fahrenheit 451, censorship is a reoccurring theme which can be seen as destructive to individual thought in society. The thought of censorship and control of media being destructive…
Fahrenheit 451 is a novel written by Ray Bradbury exploring the effects of a simplistic society devoid of free thinking and reliant on cheap satisfactions. The story follows a fireman whose job is to burn books and put an end to the sharing of knowledge. The novel reveals the psyche of many of its characters, and also the author. Psychoanalytic theory was created by Sigmund Freud, a famous Austrian psychologist. It is a theory used to explain human behaviour. Psychoanalytic theory states that the id, the ego, and the superego make up the human personality. The id represents the instinctual drive for instant satisfactions. The job of the ego is to fulfill the demands of the id in a safe and socially acceptable way while also considering the ideals of the super ego. The super ego is comprised of the idealistic goals and ideal self one wishes to accomplish. It strives for perfection and morality. In addition, Freud used defence mechanisms such as repression to explain how people cope with difficult emotions. Sigmund Freud’s theories and ideologies can be used to analyse people and literature in order to uncover secrets about the psyche.…
Not knowing things is sometimes an award, but it can also be a curse. The same idea is applied to the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury where the government often hides the truth from the people. They do this to keep everyone happy since they think if you do not know about something, you do not have to worry about it. Some people can accept this standard of living, but others feel as if they are missing something like the main character Guy Montag felt as he learned more about books. Montag developed throughout the story to overcome the statement Ignorance is Bliss by the help of many characters but mainly Beatty, Clarisse, and Faber.…
The novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, revolves around the life of Guy Montag, who is living in a time when society not only bans books, but burns them. People in this society spend their life in front of a screen, disconnected from their true feelings and emotions. Clarisse, however, is a seventeen year old girl who is different from others in her society. Unlike teenagers her age, Clarisse spends most of the time observing the people and places around her, as she sometimes rides“…the subway and look at them [people] and listen to them.” In addition, while teenagers her age are busy killing each other, she takes great notice of nature like the “… dew on the grass in the morning.” Clarisse focuses on the little things that life brings…
When Montag meets Clarisse he realizes there is something different about her. Clarisse's personality is something Montag has never seen before. After going on a walk with Clarisse, Montag has many thoughts. On page 9 it says, “ What incredible power of identification the girl had; she was like the eager watcher of a marionette show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture of his hand, each flick of a finger, the moment before it began. How long had they walked together? Three minutes? Five? Yet how large that time seemed now. How immense a figure she was on the stage before him; what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender body!” Montag thinks this in his head when he gets home from the walk with Clarisse. This is the very beginning of Montag’s realization that there is more to life than what his society is telling him.…