Theme Of Individuality In Fahrenheit 451

The characters, Clarisse and Mildred illustrate a contrasting look at individuality verses conformity in a society. Clarisse represents individuality, which is demonstrated through her interaction with Montag. On the other hand, Mildred represents conformity based on how she spends her days and nights. Clarisse is led by internal factors, while Mildred is led by external factors.
Clarisse is described as a beautiful and intelligent girl. She is overtaken by her thoughts to the point where she is no longer accepted in society. “I like to smell things, and look at things, and sometimes I stay up all night, walking, and watch the sun rise.” She even has a “kind and gentle hunger” in her to touch and experience everything. Her curiosity

is relentless, which is a true mark of individuality.
Through Clarisse’s eyes, Montag sees himself suspended in “drops of bright water…a soft and constant light…strangely comfortable and rare and gently flattering light.” This suggests that Clarisse illuminates and enlightens, just as her name means clear and bright.

She brings clarity to Montag; therefore, allowing him to begin to see within himself and reach for his individuality.
Furthermore, Clarisse spends the time to observe Montag, recognizing that he is just a man, while others see his profession of being a fireman, which translates fear and danger. She notices his difference in comparison to her peers. “I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other….I’m afraid of them and they don’t like me because I’m afraid.” She fears mindlessness, where children are not encouraged to think, but regurgitate.
Likewise, these children will kill without a moment’s thought, not understanding the very act they have committed or the impact of it. Therefore, she’s not afraid of Montag because he is doing his job, but the children are committing random acts of violence. She is not afraid of him, for he is not after her. She sees the man outside of being a fireman, his human side, the part of him that shows himself, his

character.
Moreover, she has not broken any laws in his eyes. She says to him, “You are not like the others.” She knows this because for the very fact that he is having a conversation with her. He communicates that he is different because he even answers her questions. This shows that Clarisse is mindful of her surroundings, and is aware of how society impacts one’s outlook on life. This conversation is a sign of Clarisse’s liberated mind, which will force Montag to begin to yearn this type of freedom.
Unlike Clarisse, Mildred’s “face was like a snow-covered island, upon which rain might fall, but it fell no rain; over which clouds might pass their moving shadows, but she felt no shadow.

There was only the singing of the thimble-wasps in her tamped shut ears, and her eyes all glass, and breath going in and out , softly, faintly, in and out her nostrils, and her not caring whether it came or went, went or came.” She is a cold depressed person, who shows no remnant of feelings. She only watches the parlor walls and listens to her thimble radios without a care in the world. This seems to be a form of escapism. These radios make a constant crackling noise in her ears. The result is the numbing of her brain, significantly reducing or eliminating her thinking. Her listening to nothing, keeps her from thinking. It is possible that she wants to die because of this nothingness, which conformity brings on. She has no family and no life. In fact, almost no one in this society knows anything about family or life. In one’s opinion, family is scripted, where everyone knows every move something or someone is going to make. Everything has to be predictable. “Every night the waves had come in and bore her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea.” The listening of the thimble radios also helps her escape the reality that she cannot sleep. She is so brainwashed by society that she keeps forgetting that she has

taken the pills, finishes the bottle, and overdoses.
Finally, both Clarisse and Mildred are in opposition, for Clarisse refuses her mind to be enslaved by society, where she would not be in control of her thoughts. However, Mildred succumbs to society’s taming of her mind, losing herself in the madness. Conformity devours individuality; therefore, individuality prevails only when one does not take a liberated mind for granted.