In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Mildred Montag is the wife to Guy Montag. She is obsessed with all of the latest gadgets…such as her 'Family". Which is really just the multiple wall sized T.Vs in their parlor. At first I thought that Mildred was suicidal, but throughout the book I have made my mind that the only thing she really cares about is her time with the 'family'. This life that she is living causes her to literally be blind to reality. She would rather turn in her husband to the police than to stand by his side when he asks and needs it the most.
At first I thought that Mildred was suicidal. “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. There was only the singing of the thimble-wasps in her temped-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. The object he had sent tumbling with his foot now glinted under the edge of his own bed. 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." pg.13 Did Mildred purposely take all of these pills? Why would she? She had all the entertainment in the world. She didn't even care about Guy, but she still denies taking all of those pills. Isn't that suspicious? "...'Yes' he said.’I wanted to talk to you.' He paused. 'You took all the pills in your bottle last night.' 'Oh, I wouldn't do that,' she said, surprised. ‘The bottle was empty' 'I wouldn't do a thing like that. Why would I do a thing like that?' she said...'Heck,' she said 'what would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for?'... She was quite obviously waiting for him to go. 'I didn't do that,' she said. 'Never in a billion years.'" pg.19-20 I was still convinced that Mildred was suicidal. It is very common these days for people to kill themselves in the way I though Mildred was trying to. "'Hell' The operator's cigarette moved on his lip.’We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. With optical lens, of course that was new; the rest is ancient. You don't need an M.D., case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour..." pg. 15 Then another thought popped into my head. Mildred is not suicidal, she just doesn't care. Not about herself, not about guy, not about the world, only her T.V's.
Throughout reading the rest of this book, I found that this opinion of mine was increasingly growing into a fact. When Guy's only friend Clarisse goes missing, he freaks. He is worried for her. One when Mildred and Guy were talking, Clarisse happens to be brought up into the conversation. "'What girl?' she was almost asleep. 'The girl next door' 'What girl next door?' 'You know, the high-school girl. Clarisse, her name is.' 'Oh, yes,' said his wife. 'I haven't seen her for a few days - four days to be exact. Have you seen her?' 'No.' 'I've meant to talk to you about her. Strange.' 'Oh, I know the one you mean.' 'What about her?' asked Montag 'I meant to tell you. Forgot. Forgot.' Tell me now. What is it?' ' I think she is gone.' 'Gone?' 'Whole family moved out somewhere. But she's gone for good. I think she's dead.' 'We couldn't be talking about the same girl.' 'No. The same girl. McClellan. McClellan. Run over by a car. Four days ago. I'm not sure. But I think she's dead. The family moved out anyway. I don't know. But I think she's dead.'...'Why didn't you tell me sooner?' 'Four days ago!' 'I forgot all about it.'" pg.47 How do you forget a thing like that. A girl died by getting hit by a car. Although these incidents occur often, how do you forget one who dies and lives not far from you? The only thing she cares about is sitting in her parlor watching her family. Even right after Mildred almost dyes, she doesn't care. "' It's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It’s only two thousand dollars.' 'That's on-third of my yearly pay.' ‘It’s only two thousand dollars,' she replied. ‘And I should think you'd consider me sometimes..." Mildred is so of in some whimsical land of hers, she doesn't even know the concept of money. Montag isn't the one being inconsiderate? He saved her from dyeing. He already bought four walls for her. It's not like she has a job to pay for any of this. For me the final straw came when Mildred walked out on Guy. She called the firemen on him to report the books that he has been hiding. She is so reserved, hidebound and blatantly doesn't care about anyone besides her family at this point. " The front door opened; Mildred came down the steps, running, one suitcase held with a dreamlike clenching rigidity in her fist, as a beetle-taxi hissed to the curb. 'Mildred!' 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...'"pg. 114 See Mildred didn't care at all. She didn't care that Guy was going to go to prison, that these books she is having burned could be the last of its kind, that she took the sleeping pills, that she is willing to spend a third of Montag's yearly pay that she can have a fourth wall installed.
Throughout the beginning of the book I thought that Mildred Montag was suicidal. Come to fact I don't think that at all anymore. I think she doesn't care about anything besides her and her family of TV's. It seems to me that Mildred is not happy about leading a life blind to reality. She is obsessed with it. If she isn't focused on her family, then she is concerned when she is going to get another wall taken out and a TV put in. Mildred Montag has no care for the world in Fahrenheit 451. Maybe if she hadn't left Montag, but stuck by his side, she and her family members wouldn't have gotten blown up by the bomb.
