Analysis of Ray Bradbury´s Farenheit 451

When he is walking home, Montag chances upon Clarisse, who is taking a moonlight walk. She begins speaking to him, and he listens, though most others would “walk off and leave [her] talking...[because] no one has time anymore for anyone else” ( Bradbury 23). Montag took time out of his day to humor a girl who he did not know, though he could have gone home. It would have been much more convenient for him to ignore her, and taken less effort as well. It is evident that Clarisse has met many people who ignored her, considering her surprise and slight bemusement that Montag listened. Clarisse describes Montag as ‘peculiar’, and claims that he does not seem very much like a fireman. This indicates that firemen, who are leaders and representatives of society, would not stop to talk to someone else, preferring to rush home instead. Montag’s society, generally, cares much more for constant comfort, pleasure, and gratification than the effort of interacting with others. However, once Montag does put in the effort to hold a conversation with Clarisse, he quickly develops an intimate bond with her. This, to him, seems overwhelming and revolutionary because he has never has such a close connection with anyone before, not his wife, not his colleagues. He only spoke to her for a few minutes, “yet how large that time seemed...how immense a figure she was on the stage before him.” (11). It is natural that Montag feels like Clarisse is the biggest person in his life, because he has never had a mutual, intimate, relationship with anyone else. He cares about her so much that he becomes extremely upset when she later disappears and is presumably dead. Montag only knew Clarisse for a short period of time, yet she is arguably the

Montag's house was on fire. He ended up burning all to forget about his past for example his wife whom he never loved and never knew her. “Fire was the best for everything” Montag felt this because Fire was the only way out of everything, his feeling and thoughts. In this this Montag showed that he is “unhappy” with his life because of everything such as Clarisse’s death. Clarisse is a young lady who loves adventures and have new experiences she died on a car crash. She showed Montag the way of life and why it’s important to live every second of

Clarisse is known as an outcast and “guilty”. She lived on the edge and she was happy instead of the people following the rules to “achieve” happiness.

“With rebellion, awareness is born,” quoted by Albert Camus. An act of rebellion can cause awareness and open people's eyes to horrendous acts. In the book Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury, when Montag realizes that the government wasn’t being fair, he decided he needed to make the society aware. Montag knew a rebellion was the only way to show that the government was not treating citizens right. It is acceptable to rebel when it is believed that the government is being unfair to their citizens because citizens should have the right to freely speak their opinions. People shouldn’t be told what they can or can’t-do for pleasure and they should be able to express their uniqueness.

Before this understanding, Montag is ‘happy’ and feels that nothing is wrong with his life. He loves his job. He is just like everyone else. Blank and empty inside, Montag wears a mask of happiness on the outside. In the very beginning, he loves to burn books. Afterall, he is a fireman, whose job is to burn the horrible books. For him “it was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things blackened and changed” (1). Montag was just another person brainwashed by television and the lies of government. Montag would have never suspected that Clarisse is the person who takes off his blindfold. After she asks Montag if he is happy, he starts to notice the world. At first, he assures himself that he is happy. When he’s home, he realizes “he was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask…” (9). The mask of happiness that the leaders and government force the people to wear has been torn from Montag’s face and he is shocked as he sees the truth for the first time. Clarisse has started the first step in a transformation that will lead Montag on a path towards true

Montag is someone who is shy and keeps his thoughts to himself, but thinks many things. He shows that he is distracted instead of being happy throughout the book. At the time, he was walking home from work and was looking at Clarisse. Clarisse is a girl who would roam the streets and was also Montag's neighbor. She walks over to Guy and they start to have a conversation while walking to their houses. They discussing if talking about to see if Montag is really happy or if he was lying. She keeps questioning him. Bradbury explains “He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as true state affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run across the lawn with the mask and the way

Montag begins to think about what Clarisse said to him “Are you happy?” (pg 10). When he returns home, he realizes that he is not happy with his

Bradbury uses Clarisse’s character to foil Montag and reveal his disconnect from reality and nature. Clarisse is a peculiar girl who is different than the average person in this society. Clarisse introduces Montag to the world’s potential for beauty and meaning with her gentle

Over the next several weeks, Clarisse and Montag develop a friendly relationship. They talk about ideas and thoughts in a way that no one in this society seems to do anymore. Because of Clarisse's influence, Montag grows more concerned about his own life. Then one day, Clarisse disappears and Montag is troubled. Work troubles him even more, for he must participate in burning an old woman's home. Refusing to leave her books and her belongings, she lights her own fire and stays inside, dying a martyr. Montag is moved by the woman's bravery and sees it as a symbol of what is wrong with society. Almost in protest, he steals a book from the woman's house.

Fahrenheit 451 Essay “My theory on life is that life is beautiful. Life doesn't change. We people change.

Montag’s first reaction is to laugh off Clarisse’s questions; he seems uneasy with the thought of reading. His emotions and laughing reaction reveal his nervousness around a young girl, who can so easily challenge the values that he has followed all his life. Clarisse is also important because she awakens Montag to the natural world. She asks him if he knew there was a man on the moon, or if he knew what it means when a dandelion rubs off on a chin. Clarisse is the one who introduces Bradbury’s theme that “[n]ature is good and technology is bad” (Huntington 113). Clarisse lets Montag experience freedom from his society because “[t]he novel expresses this vision of freedom with images of sentimentalized nature” (Huntington 112). She leaves him feeling that something in Montag’s world has changed, that “[h]e was not happy…[h]e wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask” (Bradbury 12). Montag can no longer accept the world the way it is, and thus, either he, or it, must change. He then comes home to his wife, Mildred, to find her near death from a suicide attempt. Montag watches as two employees use a sinister machine to purge his wife of the poison. Montag sees the machine as “black cobra”, and he wonders if “it suck[s] out all the poisons accumulated with the years” (Bradbury 14).

He first meets Clarisse walking home one night from work. She is unlike the people Montag is used to talking to. She opens his eyes to something other than the life he lives. “He wore his happiness like a mask,” and he only realized this, after reflecting from his conversation with Clarisse. (9) Realizing this, his happiness was gone, and he began questioning other things he thought he believed in.

In the beginning of the book Montag is just like any other member of his society until he meets his first influence,Clariesse McClellans his seventeen year old neighbor. She’s described as crazy by her uncle and an outsider by her peers. Montag and Clariesse meet when Montag is walking home from work. They get to talking and the first very impactful thing she says to Montag is on page seven at the end of their conversation she asks, “Are you happy?”. Just that alone sent Montag into a spiral of questions and that made him start to question everything because when she asked that

Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953, introduces a world in which censorship, conformity and ignorance induced by technology have created no application of one’s life. It is a world full of superficiality with wall-sized televisions broadcasting vapid entertainment, and people plug small radios into their ears to escape the dreariness of everyday reality. (any of this seem familiar?) (Cliffsnotes, 2016)

Montag lives in a society where no one thinks for themselves or knows the reasons for things and they don’t seem to care enough to question them. Montag was taught to love burning books. He never read a book and didn’t understand why the government thought books had to be burned. He thought he was happy and satisfied with his job, and outlook on life until he met his neighbor, Clarisse, who grew up discussing things and thinking about things with her family. Clarisse asked Montag if he was happy and instantaneously he answered “yes” but after thinking about the question for a while he thought, “He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back” (Bradbury 9). This is a major turning point in Montag’s life, where not only does he realize he is not happy with the way this society was, but also knows he will never be able