There are numerous reasons as to why a relationship may end. Maybe one side wasn’t recuperating the feelings, or you disagreed on too many things, but in the end it comes down to truth. Humans value truth the most in a relationship and when one doesn’t tell the truth or believes a different truth than another, a relationship can crumble in an instant. Most of the time, lying is intentional, but sometimes it isn’t. When an event occurs and one discovers the truth about something, they start to have doubts about the things similar to the truth you discovered. However, if the other person in the relationship doesn’t know about this truth, they’re going to think their partner is lying and that their doubts are just paranoia. In truth, they’re the …show more content…
one who are lying, to their partner and even themselves. Nobody likes to admit they’re wrong and most are reluctant to even consider another truth than the one they believe. You can easily find this example in real life, but literature can address this situation as well. In his novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses Montag and Mildred’s relationship to show that when revelation rouses doubt, relationships can become strained or even lost due to the fact that the two individuals don’t believe the same truth. When Montag and Mildred’s relationship is first shown in the book, it’s obviously strained. Montag doesn’t want a fourth parlor wall and Mildred overdoses with sleeping pills in the first scene we meet her, but they still believe the same truth. That books are more or less useless, and that the government is in the right to have banned them. However, when Montag meets the old woman and starts doubting the book rule, he admits to Mildred that he believes that “There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make [that] woman stay in [her] burning house; there must be something there” (Bradbury, 47). But Mildred ignores him and instead focuses on the fact that he threw up on the rug. This shows that Mildred doesn’t really agree with him, so she chooses to ignore him, similar to when a friend starts talking about something you don’t have the same opinion on, so you just don’t say anything. The revelation caused by the old lady eventually leads to Montag wanting to try books and telling Mildred that, “I feel fat. I feel like I've been saving up a lot of things, and don't know what. I might even start reading books." (62) As soon as he says that, the strain between the two is immediately evident, as Mildred, “Looked at him as if he were behind the glass wall” (62). This minor emotional partition caused by a simple old lady, leads to the creation of a massive rift between the two when Montag begins talking to Faber and discovering the truth about his society. By part 2 of the book, Montag begins to have revelations at every turn. Mildred, however, is not sharing the same experience. Faber teaches Montag that “[Books] show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless” (79). Mildred doesn’t believe this, as shown by the fact that she herself is one of those ‘comfortable people’. She absolutely loves her TV shows and doesn’t want to change. This causes a disagreement between the two, and Montag even admits to Faber that “Nobody listens any more. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls.” As shown by this quote, Montag seems has his doubts about the programming, which as mentioned in the assertion statement, leads to strain in the relationship. He doesn’t explicitly say that he doesn’t believe the TV in the novel, but when Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles are talking about politics and the candidates, Montag exclaims, “What do you know about Hoag and Noble?” (93). He further shows his doubts when he proclaims “Damn it all, damn it all, damn it!” (94). When the ladies say that their views were based off of what was shown on parlor. In the next few pages, these doubts translated into serious strain between Mildred and Montag. For example, after Montag finishes reading the poem, Mildred goes “in the bathroom” and “[Montag] heard Mildred shake the sleeping tablets into her hand” (98). It can be assumed that Mildred needs the pills just so she can sleep after what Montag pulled. Montag himself goes back to firehouse, but if a strain becomes too great, the muscle can rupture, which is exactly what happens to the relationship in part 3. If revelations were the main focus in part 2, part 3’s main focus was on the strain and eventual rupture of Montag’s relationship.
Part 1 and 2 showed how Montag’s doubts formed an emotional barrier between Montag and Mildred and part 3 was the cumulation of all those disagreements. This cumulation was Mildred turning in Montag into the firemen and reporting that he has books hidden in their house. The strain is further evident when, “She ran past with her body stiff, her face floured with powder, her mouth gone, without lipstick. ‘Mildred, you didn't put in the alarm!’ She shoved the valise in the waiting beetle, climbed in, and sat mumbling, ‘Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now ...’” (108). Montag’s doubts and revelations lead to his family being torn apart, as Mildred is saying. Without those revelations, like him meeting the old lady and becoming curious about those books, and Faber and him and talking about society, he would have never stepped outside of the mold that Mildred wanted him to stay in. Those revelations caused him to change, or discover his real values. According to Peter Pearson, a psychologist who founded Couple’s Institute, “values are the most crucial parts of a relationship.” When Montag had those revelations in the novel he realized that, “Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying to myself, I'm not happy, I'm not happy” (62). But Mildred never had those revelations, so …show more content…
her values never changed. Her only priority was watching her programs and she was content just living a normal life, no matter what her happiness was. Even in her moments of death, she was “leaning toward the great shimmering walls of colour and motion where the family talked and talked and talked to her, where the family prattled and chatted and said her name and smiled at her” (152), while Montag was planning how to change society so it can benefit current generations and future ones. They didn’t believe the same truth anymore, and as a result their relationship went from awkward to utterly gone. Relationships are built on truth and when the truth is absent or different, the whole relationship will dissipate.
Montag and Mildred relationship failed because Montag had doubts about what Mildred values, and since that’s such an important part of a relationship, the relationship didn’t work. Others may say that you can work through anything, even if one person in the relationship is lying right to your face. This may be somewhat true, but there’s no doubt that the relationship will never be the same, or it will be strained, as the assertion stated. Some people will forever stick with one person, no matter how untruthful or different they are, but that relationship isn’t healthy. A person shouldn’t stay with someone if they feel that the relationship is strained beyond repair. Just like a muscle strain, you can’t keep running on it, or else you’ll get hurt. You have to take a rest, just like with a relationship. In the beginning of the novel, Montag was unhappy and Mildred didn’t care. When the relationship ended, Montag was able to discover his true self and become ‘free’ in a sense. Relationships can be thought of like a building, with truth as the foundations. If the foundation of a building isn’t strong, it’s wise to evacuate the premises before you get
hurt.
Beatty’s speech explains why Mildred acts the way she does, which had started to become a mystery for Montag, She acts in ways that are robotic, or self-centered, or unfeeling. Beatty’s speech explains the reason
Are you really happy? Or are you sad about something? Sad about life or money, or your job? Any of these things you can be sad of. Most likely you feel discontentment a few times a day and you still call yourself happy. These are the questions that Guy Montag asks himself in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book people are thinking they are happy with their lives. This is only because life is going so fast that they think they are but really there is things to be sad about. Montag has finally met Clarisse, the one person in his society that stops to smell the roses still. She is the one that gets him thinking about how his life really is sad and he was just moving too fast to see it. He realizes that he is sad about pretty much everything in his life and that the government tries to trick the people by listening to the parlor and the seashells. This is just to distract people from actual emotions. People are always in a hurry. They have 200 foot billboards for people driving because they are driving so fast that they need more time to see the advertisement. Now I am going to show you who are happy and not happy in the book and how our society today is also unhappy.
The third reason why Mildred is a bad wife if because she doesn’t have a heart. Everyone feels the lost if someone you know died. Montag just realized that he’s been killing people for the wrong reason. People whose only offense is reading books, and killing an innocent soul is no different than being a murderer. She doesn’t care that people died. She doesn’t give a crap that her husband is a murderer. “She means nothing to me!” are the exact words that she used because she only cares about herself.
In Federalist 10 James Madison argued that while factions are inevitable, they might have interests adverse to the rights of other citizens. Madison’s solution was the implementation of a Democratic form of government. He felt that majority rule would not eliminate factions, but it would not allow them to be as powerful as they were. With majority rule this would force all parties affiliate and all social classes from the rich white to the poor minorities to work together and for everyone’s opinion and views to be heard.
The second cause that had a huge impact on the society was relationships. Montag and his wife Mildred seem to lack the love and communication they had when they were first married. When Mildred was happy about the White Clown,...
Montag defines, “her face was like 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” (13). Montag is describing how Mildred appears to him every day. This quotation proves that without books and knowledge (guidance) people in the society are unhappy, but they believe technology such as “parlor families” have the ability to keep them happy. Mildred symbolizes her society. This quotation supports depression in the society because the story clearly shows that the people are not pleased. Evidence is the fact that Mildred tried to commit suicide. If she were happy with her life and their society she would not have thought about committing suicide. “You took all the pills in your bottle last night” (19). Books not being a part of the society created a society in which everything is bad, a frightening place in the world. Mildred’s society is a dystopian society where everyone who does not have knowledge is suffering depression, they are devastating. Another example that proves that citizens in the society are depressed is when Montag feels that Captain Beatty wanted to die because he did not even try to move and purposely let Montag kill him. Evidence for the text is “he lay where he had fallen and sobbed, his legs folded, his face pressed blindly to
To start, the novel Fahrenheit 451 describes the fictional futuristic world in which our main protagonist Guy Montag resides. Montag is a fireman, but not your typical fireman. In fact, firemen we see in our society are the ones, who risk their lives trying to extinguish fires; however, in the novel firemen are not such individuals, what our society think of firemen is unheard of by the citizens of this futuristic American country. Instead firemen burn books. They erase knowledge. They obliterate the books of thinkers, dreamers, and storytellers. They destroy books that often describe the deepest thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Great works such as Shakespeare and Plato, for example, are illegal and firemen work to eradicate them. In the society where Guy Montag lives, knowledge is erased and replaced with ignorance. This society also resembles our world, a world where ignorance is promoted, and should not be replacing knowledge. This novel was written by Ray Bradbury, He wrote other novels such as the Martian chronicles, the illustrated man, Dandelion wine, and something wicked this way comes, as well as hundreds of short stories, he also wrote for the theater, cinema, and TV. In this essay three arguments will be made to prove this point. First the government use firemen to get rid of books because they are afraid people will rebel, they use preventative measures like censorship to hide from the public the truth, the government promotes ignorance to make it easier for them to control their citizens. Because the government makes books illegal, they make people suppress feelings and also makes them miserable without them knowing.
...s Montag doing? Is he trying to get himself killed? I mean, seriously, his wife might not get him in trouble, but these people who are following the “law” will probably get him in trouble. I can infer that Beatty will find out and come to Montag’s house, burning his books in the process. Montag will be in some serious punishment. Even Mildred was trying to protect him, by saying: “Ladies, once a year, every fireman’s allowed to bring one book home, from the old days, to show his family how silly it was…” However, I think that Mildred is doing this for her own benefit because she might not want her friends to leave, or if she loses Montag, then she has nothing. So, this passage may not be only foreshadowing that Montag will be in big trouble later, but also some facts about Mildred’s personality.
She does not express her views of the world since she spends her days watching and “communicating” with the parlor walls. Because of this, she is very forgetful of personal events and careless of others. Bradbury 40, Montag thinks back to when he and Mildred first met. “The first time we met, where was it and when?” “Why it was at-” She stopped. “I don't know,” she said. Also in Bradbury 49, Mildred states, “..let me alone. I didn't do anything,” as Montag shares his book conflict. This shows how Mildred lacks in thinking and considering the feelings of others. Therefore, she is the opposing side of the theme of the
The North Korean government is known as authoritarian socialist; one-man dictatorship. North Korea could be considered a start of a dystopia. Dystopia is a community or society where people are unhappy and usually not treated fairly. This relates how Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 shows the readers how a lost of connections with people and think for themselves can lead to a corrupt and violent society known as a dystopia.
Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance to Today Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence of the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today, which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books. Patai explains that Bradbury saw that people would soon be controlled by the television and saw it as the creators chance to “replace lived experience” (Patai 2).
Within the many layers of Montag lay several opposite sides. For example, Montag is a fireman who burns books for a living but at home, spends time reading novels, poetry, and other written material. Although Montag could be called a hypocrite, he does not enjoy both the reading and the burning at the same time; he goes through a change that causes him to love books. Humans have the power to change and grow from one extreme to another, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In addition, when Mildred is with Montag, Montag does not have feelings for her but thinks of her as she is killed by the bombs. He possesses both the knowledge that Mildred does not love him and the heart that truly cares, but he knows not how to deal with this. His feelings are oppressed; it takes a major event (the bomb) to jolt them from hibernation.
Mildred admittedly turns in Montag’s books and betrays their relationship because of what will possibly happen if they were caught. She questions and denies all affiliations with her husband; she disbelieves her husband’s opinion on what books mean. On Montag’s statement
As human beings, knowledge shapes who we are and sharpens our personalities, respect tightens our relationships, and love is what we need to achieve a happy life. What if there are no emotions, love, and respect between a young couple? What if they both live in a world which lacks knowledge and books but is full of violence and TV shows? Guy Montag and his wife, Mildred, who live in the future world in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, are in the same situation. By the attractive tone and voice, the author emphasizes their depressed relationship and makes it unforgettable for the audience. Specifically, from the view of their relationship, we can see the reflection of our modern world nowadays, where communication and feelings are replaced
“Books aren’t real” [84] to her and the knowledge they contain is frightening and dangerous because it destroys her perfect idealized dream world. At the end of the novel Montag asks her to change her ways. He begs her to actually listen to him and read a book. However, Mildred blatantly refuses to do so because she perceives knowledge as a threat. Instead she screams for him to stop, showing that she would rather be ignorant than be exposed to something unknown. Mildred’s defiance towards knowledge demonstrates how sometimes not knowing is easier that dealing with the truth. Yet, is ignoring the truth any better? Can happiness really be achieved through self-deception and conformity, or is challenging the truth what makes us content?