Summary Of ' The Small Crystal Bottle Of Sleeping Tablets '

He even says to himself that he is very happy, even if he might’ve been trying to convince himself. But, when he gets home and finds that Mildred overdosed, he starts to wonder if they are actually happy together and he says “I don’t know anything anymore”. This feeling of unease is further reinforced during his second encounter with Clarisse. Clarisse tells him to rub a dandelion on his chin, claiming that if it rubs off, it means the person is in love. Montag rubs the dandelion under his chin, but it doesn’t rub off, meaning he isn’t in love with anyone. He denies this and “tried to conjure up a face to fit the words, but there was no face”, not even Mildred’s. Mildred and Montag also couldn’t seem to remember where they met, even though it was only 10 years ago. Montag also feels that they had nothing in common and this is shown in the quote “and suddenly she was so strange he couldn’t believe he knew her at all”. Montag didn’t feel a connection towards Mildred because while she was the ideal citizen of that society, Montag was curious about books and things he shouldn’t be. Because of the doubt that Clarisse planted in his mind with the dandelion, he starts to question his entire marriage and realizes that he doesn’t really care for Mildred. Clarisse aided Montag in realizing that his relationship was shallow and helped him outgrow an unhealthy

Marriage can play a big role in how a person feels about their life. It is evident that both Montag and his wife, Mildred, are both dissatisfied with their relationship. "The small crystal bottle of sleeping pills which earlier today had been filled with 30 capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare" (11). This quote refers to Montag finding Mildred overdosed on sleeping pills in the middle of the night. You can infer that Mildred is unhappy by her attempt at suicide. Montag is also unhappy as Bradbury explains Montag’s thoughts by saying "If only someone else’s flesh and brain and memory. If only they could have taken her mind along to the dry cleaner’s and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleansed it and reblocked it and

In this example Mildred didn’t know that her neighbor was dead. She forgot to tell Montag about what

Mildred is the wife of Montag. She has many different interests than Montag does which makes them foil characters. There is nothing very spectacular about Mildred. She is very bland and is obsessed with television. She believs that her family is the television shows. Montag on the other hand is appreciates books. Mildred says to Montag, “See what you are doing to us? You’ll ruin us!” (76). This quote shows that Mildred does not appreciate what Montag wants. She does not respect his interests and does not want to be married to someone who is doing illegal acts. Montag sees the books as a good thing and as an innspiration. Mildred sees them as

“ ‘Bet I know something else you don’t. There’s dew on the grass in the morning.’ (Montag) suddenly couldn’t remember if he had known this or not, and it made him quite irritable. ‘And if you look’ - she nodded to the sky - ‘there’s a man in the moon.’ He hadn’t looked for a long time.” (7). Montag meets Clarisse, his new neighbor, in the park while going home from a job. Almost immediately, Montag notices that this girl is different; she is very odd, and talks a lot about subjects unrelated to each other, such as the jet-cars and how houses used to not be fireproof. This line shows how Montag hasn’t been looking at the world as a whole and thinking about it. Instead, he has only been burning down houses and going home to his wife without

Montag’s Wife, Mildred, is a negative influence on him, trying to push him away emotionally and physically. She does not know who she really is and lives in an illusionary world with her obsession of television shows and believing they are real. He is so confused because she tries to ignore it ever happened thinking about all the bad things; “fire, sleeping tablets, men disposable tissue, coattails, blow, wad, flush...Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing...The whole world pouring down..." (19). After this incident he looks at Mildred in a different light and is someone who he can’t relate to. Another way she separates herself from Montag is through her "family", which is a television show. Montag constantly asks Millie “[if that] family loves [her]… love [her] with all their heart and soul" (83). Her world isn’t based in reality; they are clearly on different paths. Hers is one of illusion and his is becoming that of a totally self-aware person. She blocks everything and everyone out that is around her and lives within the show. Mildred opens Montag 's eyes to the real world and shows him that most people are uncaring and narcissistic.

As the plot presented itself, fire did also. Fire was used as a solution to get rid of society’s ills. Ills in this society include nonconformity, overflow in wisdom and knowledge, and government doubt or mistrust. They all derived from one common factor: books. Beatty claimed that without books “…all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door” (28). Books were the greatest evil, because it places ideas of controversy and critical thinking into the minds of readers. Explaining to Montag the quick fix to the trouble of books, Beatty said, “And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind…” (28). As these issues became more and more prominent with time, something to subdue or suppress them was needed. Fire was the answer. So, in their noble position as firemen, Montag and his coworkers destroyed any detected books with fire immediately. This way, residents cannot read them and implant radical ideas. The

Finally, throughout the novel Bradbury presents a conflict between ignorance and understanding. The general society is being numbed into believing that knowledge makes people disagree with each other and unhappy. To prevent people from reading and gaining knowledge, the firemen burn all books. By committing these actions, they are promoting sameness and ignorance, to supposedly maintain happiness among society. Captain Beatty explains the history of firemen to Montag, speaking of their society’s view of equality. “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind.” (Bradbury, page 58) Captain Beatty is hinting that books encourage people to question authority and think about why things are done the way they are

115-116). Mildred got Montag caught, she wouldn’t even help out one of her loved ones. However when Mildred just got Montag in trouble and is leaving him, “Mildred, you didn’t put in the alarm.”(pg 114). This shows how Mildred doesn’t care about montag much, get him in trouble, and then just leaves

It was revealed that Mildred and her friends are the people that reported Montag to the firemen. Earlier, Montag offended Mildred’s friends by reading a melachony poem that caused emotion. Mildred did not stay loyal to her husband and instead reports him to the government, abiding to society. The main rift in their relationship was that they are on opposite sides of society, Mildred is very devoted while Montag challenges the society standards. Deep down, she knows that if she is instead devoted to her husband then her life would go down the drain. She would lose everything including her ‘family’ and therefore has no hestiation in turning against

There is a difference between Mildred and Clarisse when they interact with Montag. When Montag and his wife have a conversation, it usually ends with Mildred being disinterested with what he is saying. It even makes Montag think “Well, wasn’t there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just one wall but, so far three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews…” (44). There seems to be no real connection between Montag and Mildred because she is busy watching the parlor walls. Whenever he tries to make an effort to talk to her, she seems to want to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Clarisse and Montag’s conversation flows and continues. Ever since they met, the talks that they have had with each other always keeps them both intrigued. When Montag and Clarisse were discussing what he does for a living she could sense that something was wrong and just before

Also, why they didn 't send professional help instead of people (who we don 't know if they were qualified) with machines to essentially replace almost all the inner liquids of the body with new (from a stranger) liquids. Again, the question of why Mildred was trying to kill herself? I think this is one of the reasons why Montag is unhappy with life.

Trying to convince oneself that they are happy is not an easy task, but one in which Mildred excels in. At the start of the book Mildred has a situation where she takes too many sleeping pills and a special doctors team has to rush over to their house to pump it out. Although this could be seen as an accident, some readers could interpret this action as

One night Montag heads outside in the middle of the night.“The last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here, moving in the starlight toward his house”(pg.8). While walking he meets a 17 year old girl, named Clarisse McClellan, who is new in the neighborhood. She guesses right away that he is a firefighter because she smells kerosene. Clarisse asks, “Do you ever read any of the books you

In the novel, firemen are known to burn books rather than stop fires and save lives. Stoneman and Black, two firemen from the novel, are addressed with the "rumor'' that before there was a time that firemen did not burn books. They respond by reading an excerpt from their rule book that states, "Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin." (Bradbury 32).