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   mrs-campbell Teacher
   High School - 11th Grade

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   When Montag enters the bedroom for the first time in the novel, it is fresh off of his enlivening, refreshing, and highly intriguing and lively meeting with Clarisse in the street.  He is incredibly moved by her; he describes her for many paragraphs, trying to capture how and why she moved him so much.  For the first time in a long time, Montag feels alive and envigorated.  Then, he enters his room.  It is described as eerily silent, cold as a tomb, dark, unresponsive, and almost machine-like.  He describes,

   "It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set.  Complete darkness...the window tightly shut, the chamber a tomb world."

   He knows that even though the room is deathly silent, that it isn't empty, and that his wife is in it.  But upon further reflection, he concludes that no, "the room was empty."  His wife being there made no impact on the environment.  This realization, and the room itself, reflects Mildred herself.  She is, literally, almost dead, but also, symbolically speaking, she is cold, and non-responsive to Montag and life.  She has become an empty person, with no thought or emotions of any impact at all.  She is a stark contrast to the questioning, reflective, happy Clarisse that Montag just met.  Mildred is instead,like the room, filled with dark, dense emptiness, and seemingly incapable of offering comfort, warmth or light.  I hope that those thoughts helped; good luck!

   Sources:

   http://www.enotes.com/fahrenheit-451/characters

   http://www.enotes.com/fahrenheit-451/summary

   http://www.enotes.com/fahrenheit-451/themes

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   Posted by mrs-campbell on Tuesday October 27, 2009 at 7:36 PM