Mildred Montag Character Analysis in Fahrenheit 451

📌Category: Books, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, Writers
📌Words: 1046
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 25 January 2022

Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury is an allegorical story of a firefighter named Guy Montag, whose job is to burn and destroy books but that later changes when curiosity takes the better of him. Montag remains in a state of independence because his wife, Mildred, slowly starts losing herself through societal pressure and fear. Eventually, Mildred’s character adds to the allegory by exhibiting the emotional language of the average person living in a dystopian society, who is controlled by a scared government using advanced technology. 

Initially, Mildred is seen as a sick and dead looking human, whose life is sustained due to the work of machinery. When Montag investigates a bottle of pills found near Mildred's bed, he learns how Mildred swallowed an excessive amount of pills that nearly killed her. Mildred first appears as a lifeless mannequin with a long black tube running down her throat being described by Montag as, “a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there” (12). The simile of the tube being a “cobra” connects to the idea that the technology being used to save Mildred is almost evil because technology is almost controlling people's lives. Mildred was so emotionally drained that she was unaware of how many pills she took making her seem unstable and dangerous. The bottle of pills Montag picked up can almost be seen as a symbol that represents Mildred’s blindness to what is going on because she is too distracted. Along with the first machine going down Mildred’s throat, another machine continuously pumps blood and serum into her toxic body as the poisonous blood is drawn out. As Montag witnesses this machine, he thinks, “If only they could have taken her mind along to the dry cleaner’s and emptied the pockets and steamed and cleaned it and reblocked it” (14). Montag sees his ailing wife and he immediately wanted to change her mind and “emptied the pockets” of her memories because Montag saw Mildred as an impulsive and different person he knew. Mildred constantly works solely off her id, only needing the basics and nothing more than that, so she is just a shell of a person. For Mildred, the machine is replacing her blood, and yet blood is the essence of life, her life is being taken away and replaced by the work of technology.

As time progresses, Mildred denies Montag's idea to read books because she is afraid of the control the government has over her. Humans are naturally curious and it's especially prevalent when Montag is seen stealing a book from the crime scene of a woman hoarding piles of books. This curiosity eventually spreads onto Mildred as Montag wants to share his thoughts with her, yet Mildred trusts what Beatty had said earlier about books, she exclaims, “What does it mean? It doesn’t mean anything! The Captain was right!” (65). Mildred is stuck in a bubble of paranoia as she is visibly confused and scared of what secrets books could hold and she only sees what she wants to see and cannot wrap her head around the bigger picture. With technology being named “The Family”, it's only a coincidence that it acts like her family as she finds comfort in the cradle of technology. This technology is what places her in her own utopia so books don't even pass her mind, she would rather trust authority than risk possible endangerment where her technology is burned and forgotten. Though through Mildreds outburst, Montag still wants to share the new experience of reading books with Mildred so he takes a risk and shows Mildred the books he's been hoarding over time, Mildred responds to the situation in fear. Montag described her reaction as, “If she were suddenly confronted by a pack of mice that had come up out of the floor… Then, moaning she ran forward, seized a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator” (63). Since Mildred responded in such a manner, her stubbornness of not wanting to read the books broke the trust between her and Montag leading her to live in a world of loneliness. The fear created by the government led Mildred to treat books like rodents, alive and disease carrying creatures that don’t belong in her household. The amount of fear Mildred experiences represents how terrified she is of the laws built around reading books, this leads to Mildreds confusion and emotionless personality.

Eventually, the characterization of Mildred cracking under the stigma made around reading books allegorically shows how people are impressionable and gullible by people in power. Montag had always wanted to know what is inside of books. Knowledge? Nothing? Or do books contain answers… he wants to know. Mildred slowly starts to become stressed under the pressure Montag creates because he is forcing his ideas onto her. Mildred and society are both afraid of the unknown so Mildred started hiding the books around the house that Montag later discovers, “He searched the house and found the books where Mildred had stacked them behind the refrigerator. Some were missing and he knew that she had started on her own slow process of dispersing the dynamite in her house” (98). The metaphor of books being an explosive creates a visual of books being destructive weapons that when put into the wrong hands or found, they could explode or burn her house down. This metaphor also reflects how society paints a picture of the “dynamite” destroying someone's state of mind, blank and meaningless words poisoning them. Mildred, along with society, keeps in line and follows the laws implemented by the government because they don’t want to argue with anyone higher in power and set off the explosive. Mildred turns into a character of instability and shame when Montag reads a book to Mildred's friends because Montag wants to spread his new profound knowledge of what books really contain. This causes Mildred to finally lose it, explaining, “Fool, Montag, fool, fool, oh god you silly fool” (98).  The repetition of the word fool makes Mildred seem insane, not able to really face her husband and talk to him about what he just did. Mildred is just like society in this instance where rulebreakers are immediately criminals that should be punished for what they have done. Mildred inevitably left Montag because of her impressionable mind, she would rather snitch than take a risk. Society and Mildred both are willing servants under the power of a scared government.

The allegory of Fahrenheit 451 creates a larger theme of humanity being oppressed under fear and temptation. Mildred adds to this allegory by playing the role of the innocent, someone who has no idea of what is truly going on. Mildred characterization is crucial in understanding how humans can be drained under paranoia.

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