Fahrenheit 451 Psychological Analysis Essay

Martin Bastidas
Professor Tirado
ENG 110
12 October 2014
A Psychological Approach to Mildred
In the story “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury it clearly shows that Mildred the wife of the main character, Guy Montag, has different psychological problems. Mildred in the story isn’t happy with her life. You can find her in her house all day in front of the television instead of getting up and going to work like most people in society. She doesn’t care about her marriage and never shows any love or care for her husband. She cares more about technology than him. In addition, Mildred is addicted to prescription drugs. Mildred is living in denial and her actions demonstrate that she is a selfish and self-destructive individual.
When you’re

living in denial you protect yourself by not accepting the truth of what is happening in your life. In a short time denial can be good, so you can forget about your stress. But living in denial for too long can have some bad effects because it just doesn’t fix your issues. This is the case with Mildred in the story. Mildred shows that she is living in denial because in the story she insists to Guy Montag that she is happy with her life when in fact she isn’t. Mildred tries to commit suicide in the story. When her husband Montag tries confronting her about committing suicide, she denies it and quickly changes the subject by talking about television shows. This just shows that she doesn’t want to hear about reality, because she knows it is wrong. In the story she keeps denying that she tried to kill herself but it wasn’t the first time she tried to. Mildred has three televisions on a wall because she tries to escape her pain by watching television. She uses the television to get away from Guy and anyone else who tries talking to her. Mildred does this because she is unhappy with what is in her life and she wants her life to be like the ones in the television shows. She even calls the people in the television shows her real family rather than her own husband. The fact that she doesn’t want to be dealing with these problems causes her to try to attempt suicide. These actions show that Mildred is living in denial with her life and is not happy like she states she is in the story.
Mildred not only shows she’s living in denial about her life, but she is also selfish. A selfish
person puts their priorities and needs first before anyone else, even if they are really in need. A
selfish person only cares about themselves. They fear to give up any time, money, or to help
anyone because they are afraid of the consequences that might happen to them.

Mildred clearly
shows she is selfish by showing this type of behavior. She does not care about her husband at
all. She only cares about make believe characters in television shows. All she cares about is
about buying herself the newest technology. For example, she bugs her husband for another
television when they already have three. They cannot afford it because it cost almost all of Guys
salary. This puts a burden on Guy and must decide whether to buy it or not. Mildred is never
satisfied of what Guy has to offer for her and is only worried about having more things. She only
talks to him about the television shows and nothing else unless it has to do with him getting her
more things. Overall, Mildred is only concerned with what Guy can buy her then rather caring
about him and their marriage. In the story books are illegal, so when Mildred discovers her
husband owning and reading books she betrays him. She reports him to the fire station. Once
Mildred reports him, she runs away from him because she doesn’t care about her own husband
and only cares about herself. Many of these actions display Mildred as a selfish individual in

the
story. If Mildred was a loving and caring spouse she would have not betrayed her husband.
Finally, Mildred’s denial leads to her being a self-destructive individual. Self-destructive
behavior is when someone harms or abuses oneself. Many people are unaware of their self-
destructive behavior because they are not on the right mind set. Self-destructive behavior can
lead to having abusive relationships, hiding true feeling, drug abuse, and any behavior that can
lead to death.

In the story Mildred defiantly shows this behavior. Mildred is empty and mindless;
she is just lost in technology. She doesn’t value her life because she tries to commit suicide. In
the beginning of the story her husband gets home to her overdosed on sleeping pills. The story
says “The small crystal bottle of sleeping tablets which earlier today had been filled with thirty
capsules and which now lay uncapped and empty in the light of the tiny flare” (Bradbury 11).
Her willing to kill herself just shows that she doesn’t value her life and is willing to die anytime.
In reality Mildred is addicted to sleeping pills because this was not the first time it had happened.
It had happened several times in the story which kind of shows that Mildred isn’t really doing it
to commit suicide. She is doing it because she has an addiction to the pills and drinks nearly so
much of them that she literally is killing herself and doesn’t care if she dies or not. Also, when
her husband tries to help her and explain to her what she had done she didn’t want to hear it..
This shows that she is ignorant and does not care about her bad behavior. A person who

sits
down all day watching television shows, says the people in those shows are her family, and is
high on sleeping pills definitely shows that he or she does not care about their life and is
unhappy with everything.
Mildred in the story clearly shows that she hates her life. She is just a heartless person that watches television all day long to make her satisfied and escape from reality. Mildred cares more about technology then she cares about her being alive. She even considers her only family the characters in the TV show she watches. She is unhappy with her own husband because she can’t understand his personality. She doesn’t understand why he likes to read, so she betrays him and runs away. She tries to commit suicide and denies about doing it and off course she is addicted to pain killers. All these events in the story demonstrate that Mildred lives in denial, is selfish, and is self-destructive. With all these components of Mildred it shows us that she indeed has a psychological problem. The actuality though, is that most of the people in their society were living just like Mildred.