Fahrenheit 451 Mildred Montag Essay Example

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel written by Ray Bradbury, and it centers around Guy Montag, a fireman who starts fires instead of putting them out, because books are illegal. The novel portrays Montag’s awakening into the actual state of his reality, which is in a society where original thought is taboo. Mildred is Montag’s wife, and she does not do any thinking for herself, instead she merely lives her life through mindless entertainment. Mildred is allegorical of the typical member of society, who can think for themself, but chooses not to, in a world where the lack of thought has diminished the culture.

When Mildred is introduced, she has overdosed on sleeping pills, showing the disconnect she has with life, which is significant because it’s an example of the average citizen in their society. Montag comes home from work and enters his bedroom, where he finds an unconscious Mildred and an empty body of sleeping pills on the floor. Montag’s bedroom is described as “the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set” which foreshadows the reveal of Mildred after her suicide attempt (23). Montag kicks the empty bottle of sleeping pills, before turning on the light to see his wife, Mildred, passed out on her bed. Montag describes her face as “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” (25). The simile of the “snow covered island”, conveys how isolated Mildred is from her husband and  the rest of the world. The imagery of the “shadows” and “rain” is important because, the island not being able to feel the shadows or the rain, demonstrates how little Mildred feels in life, because of her lack of thinking.  Montag also notes the “singing of the thimble-wasps in her [Mildred’s] tamped-shut ears” (25). Mildred’s reliance on technology can also be seen in this quote, because Mildred doesn’t even take her seashell radios out during her attempt at killing herself.Mildred plays the role of the status quo of society, and she is suffering through her life. Bradbury shows the reader early just how unfulfilling this world’s culture is, by making the life of the average citizen incredibly painful.

As the novel progresses, it is shown how Mildred values her parlor family more than the actual people in her life. The parlor family are the floor to ceiling televisions in Mildred’s living room, and they cover 3 out of the 4 walls. In the middle of the book, Montag wakes up with chills and a fever, and he hears the parlor family shouting from his bedroom. He converses with Mildred about the parlor family when he wakes up, and says“‘Will you turn it off for a sick man?’ ‘I’ll turn it down.’ She went out of the room and did nothing to the parlor and came back. ‘Is that better?’” (63). Montag is physically not feeling well, because of the burden his job puts on him, and all he asks Mildred to do is a simple task, to “turn it off for a sick man” which she refuses. She can’t bear the thought of not being able to hear her pretend family even though it will make Montag feel better. Later in the novel, Mildred has her friends over, for a girls night, where Montag observes, “Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles came through the front door and

vanished into the volcano’s mouth with martinis in their hands. Montag stopped eating… and now they were screaming at each other above the din” (107). Mildred’s friends come over, and immediately enter the living room, which Montag describes as “the volcano’s mouth”. Montag equates entering his own living room to entering a place where there would be immediate death. It also personifies the living room, thanks to the usage of the word mouth. The usage of volcano indicates the type of person the living room would be, which is an evil one. Immediately when Mildred’s friends enter, all they do is scream to each other over the sound of their television programs, discussing said programs. The reader can see how shallow the relationships that Mildred and her friends have are, because when everyone in a society chooses to not think, the conversations they can have are very limited. Later in the scene, Montag tries to discuss their husbands going to war, and they respond with very little detail, before Mildred brings up a program that was on the night before. These scenes make Mildred into a more complex character, because not only is she in immense pain, but she doesn’t want to foster meaningful relationships with Montag and her friends. She only wants to be spoon fed meaningless entertainment. It can be seen in her action of valuing her television family over her real one, neglecting to turn it off, even for a little bit, to maintain that instant gratification. With her friends, only conversing about meaningless entertainment and not about the real issues facing their world, shows the drastically poor quality of their friendships that can only be attributed to absolute lack of worthwhile culture. The culture is so lacking, she chooses pain and suffering, instead of trying to put the effort into making significant relationships with the people around her.

At the end of the novel, Mildred betrays her husband, and becomes a critique of the selfish and everyone for themself mentality that society has. The last thing Mildred does in the book, before she leaves her husband, is rats him out to the fireman. Montag had revealed his smuggled books to her, and even read a poem to her and her friends. Mildred was the one who sent in the signal to the firehouse that ended up with the firemen taking the salamander back to Montag’s house. Once they arrived at the house, “The front door opened; Mildred came down the steps, running…She ran past with her body stiff, her face floured with powder, her mouth gone, without lipstick… She shoved the valise in the waiting beetle, climbed in, and sat mumbling, ‘Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now’”(128). Not only is Mildred leaving, but she runs, like she can’t wait to end her stint with her husband. This passage is the end of an abysmal marriage that has been on a downward path for the entirety of the novel. It seems like Mildred cannot wait to leave, and the only thing she will miss about her life with Montag, is the fake family she spent all of her time with. The reader can fully see how she values herself and her things more than her husband. The way she is described, “ her body stiff, her face floured with powder, her mouth gone, without lipstick” foreshadows the corpse she becomes at the end of the novel. Mildred is leaving her husband of ten years, and the only thing she says is “Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone” cementing the idea that her technology is the thing she cares about the most. Mildred never tried to learn, or be insightful about society, which led to her finding pleasure and an escape from life in her screens. She devalued her husband, failing to even speak to him as she was leaving. This is a result of the culture, where she was forced to build dependence on her fake family, and in return, diminish her relationship with her husband and turn her into a self-centered, technology obsessed, wife.

As Mildred is seen throughout the course of the novel, she contributes to the allegory of Fahrenheit 451. Mildred represents an average person in the novel, which shows how poor the widespread culture in their world is. The people are so unhappy, they have created inventions to save them from the brink of death, when they have overdosed like Mildred. They are so obsessed with their TVs, that they never have real conversations with their friends. They can’t even sleep without the use of their radios. They have failing marriages that they can’t wait to escape from, which would only result in them losing their fake parlor families. They are so morally corrupt due to the lack of originality and thinking. That is what Bradbury is trying to warn society about. If society loses knowledge, thinking, ideas, and originality, they also lose their culture. Mildred shows the reader this idea, through her constantly invaluable relationships and obsession with mindless entertainment. By making her the status quo, Bradbury teaches the reader truly how valuable  knowledge, thinking, ideas, and originality can be.