be a primary goal, why does there seem to be so many people who take their own lives? It is out of dissatisfaction and emptiness that citizen's of Montag's society turn to suicide.

The people in this dystopian society are vapid creatures whose lives are devoid of real passions. They don't connect on any meaningful level with other people and instead exist superficially, their attempts to find pleasure in meaningless entertainment leaving them ultimately empty. Without the depth of ideas found in literature and without a connection to history, they cannot find any meaningful existence. The repetition of suicide contributes to the tone of the novel: bleak and hopeless. It reinforces the understanding that in order to find meaning, people must connect to literature and to history. Although each of these characters represent very different parts of this society, they are connected by the emptiness that remains when disconnected from literature and, therefore, depth of thought.

In Fahrenheit 451, it is not made clear why people frequently commit suicide. When Mildred tries to commit suicide, for example, she denies all knowledge of what has happened. By looking more deeply at her case, however, we can infer some reasons for this disturbing suicide trend.

Mildred is a person who lives for mindless entertainment. She spends all day in front of the parlor walls. Her only real friends are the Family, and when she feels down or angry, she drives fast in her Beetle. Mildred, then, represses her feelings and focuses on instant gratification.

Eventually we see the true cost of Mildred's lifestyle. When she sees her own face in the mirror, for example, it is "wildly empty" and so "starved" that it eats itself. Mildred seems incapable of truly facing how unhappy and dissatisfied this way of life has made her.

From Mildred's case, we can argue that suicide is a result of the empty and shallow nature of a world without thought and learning.