In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury develops several characters to make
his case against the evils of censorship. In a world void of books and
intellectual freedom, reins brain-dead Mildred and control-freak Beatty.
In sharp contrast, Clarisse is a happy young girl thirsty for knowledge
about the world around her. Clarisse is a catalyst for her friend Montag
to transform his life from a mindless drone to an intellectual thinker.
Although Clarisse fails to survive society's intolerance for breaking the
rules, Montag escapes to enjoy a new and better life.
Bradbury uses Mildred as a character to illustrate what happens to a
person that is devoid of information regarding what is going on in their
own world. Mildred lives a robotic, unhappy life as evidenced by her
attempted suicide and her reliance on technical diversions from reality and
closeness with her husband such as her seashell radios and three-wall
television. Even her relationships with her friends revolve around
watching and talking about television. Immersed in ignorance and her
belief that books are worthless, she is unaware of her own unhappiness.
Chief Beatty represents an authoritarian society that bans books in
order to prevent deviation from conformity and structured routines. He is
a defender of this type of world because he believes that it makes people
more equal and compatible with one another. Armed with his Mechanical
Hound, Beatty tracks down and destroys anyone that has a different idea of
what the world should be like. When Beatty orders Montag to burn his own
books and when Beatty allows Montag to kill him, Bradbury shows the reader
Beatty's desperate need to be in complete control over the lives of others.
Unlike Mildred, Clarisse is happy and is excited by learning about the
world around her. As Clarisse becomes friends with Montag, her questions
awaken him to the realities of ...