Who is Mildred's family in Fahrenheit 451?
Mildred's family is the characters in the television shows she watches on her parlour walls. They give her joy and distract her from what is happening in the world.
Montag is annoyed by his wife's feelings for the characters on the television. It was Montag himself who originally called them relatives. The narrator says:
Literally not just one, wall but, so far, three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews, that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack of tree-apes that said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud. He had taken to calling them relatives from the very first.
Mildred shows her concern for her virtual family over that of her real husband when Montag is ill. He asks her to quiet the parlour walls to accommodate his illness, but she shows she has no interest in doing so:
"Will you turn the parlour off?" he asked.
"That's my family."
"Will you turn it off for a sick man?"
"I'll turn it down."
She went out of the room and did nothing to the parlour and came back. "Is that better?"
"Thanks."
"That's my favourite programme," she said.
Mildred's desire to watch the goings-on of television characters outweighs her desire to help her sick husband feel comfortable. Montag is aware that she hasn't bothered to lower the volume and accepts it, which shows that he has accepted the lack of intimacy in their marriage. She replaces reality with a virtual world populated with people she cares for more than those in the real world.
Later, when Montag has books in their house and shuts off the walls, Mildred is outraged. She explains that her family tells her things and gives her world color. When she realizes that Captain Beatty could burn the house down if he finds out about the books, one of her concerns is that her family—the people on the screens—will be burned along with the house and she will no longer be able to see them.
Who is Mildred's family in Fahrenheit 451?
Mildred Montag spends most of the hours of her day watching television, and considers the characters in her programs to be her "family". She's an interesting character, because she appears to be a shallow fool who rarely, if ever, has an independent thought; in other words, she fits perfectly into the society in which she lives. There is friction between Mildred and her husband when he begins to question the status quo, and worst of all, recite poetry. However, when she overdoses on pills, the reader is left to wonder, did she just forget how many she took, being the dimwit that she is, or does she understand more than she lets on about the nature of the society she lives in and deliberately tried to end her life out of quiet desperation?
In Fahrenheit 451, who are the two friends that visit Mildred?
Mildred invites her neighbors, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles ,over to watch the walls. They are totally enjoying themselves and having a great time when Montag pulls the plug on the TV and tries to engage them in some thoughtful conversation.
We learn a lot about the society from this brief encounter with these two women. We learn that war is expected but it will be short. Mrs. Phelps says,
"Quick war. Forty-eight hours, they said and everyone home." (pg 94)
He asks about their children. Mrs. Bowls says,
"The world must reproduce you know, the race must go one.....I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month, it's not that bad. You heave them into the parlor and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes..... They'd just as soon kick me as kiss me. Thank God I can kick back."
We learn about their attitude toward politics when they discuss two candidates. Montag eventually reads a poem to them. Mrs. Phelps starts crying, and both women run home stating that they will never come to the Montag home again. These two women both turned him in to Captain Beatty as a person with books.
On what page does Mildred report Montag in Fahrenheit 451?
There is no page that mentions Mildred going to a red report booth in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. In the book, Montag returns to work after taking some time off to read and decide if he wants to continue to be a fireman. When he returns, the first call that his firehouse is sent on is to his own home. Captain Beatty puts Montag to work burning down his own home after he sees his wife walking out of the house, getting in the car and leaving. She doesn't even say a word to her husband. She only says something about her TV program: "Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now. . ." (114). It's only after Montag is forced to burn down his house that he turns to Captain Beatty and asks, "Was it my wife turned in the alarm?" (117). Beatty nods, but also tells him that her friends had reported him earlier, and that he had been waiting for the right moment to force Montag to burn down his own house.
On what page does Montag question his love for Mildred in Fahrenheit 451?
It's in the early pages of Part I when Montag is talking to Clarisse about the dandelions:
"If it rubs off, it means I'm in love. Has it?" He could hardly do anything else but look. "Well?" she said. "You're yellow under there." "Fine! Let's try YOU now." "It won't work for me." "Here." Before he could move she had put the dandelion under his chin. He drew back and she laughed. "Hold still!" She peered under his chin and frowned. "Well?" he said. "What a shame," she said. "You're not in love with anyone." "Yes, I am ! " "It doesn't show." "I am very much in love!" He tried to conjure up a face to fit the words, but there was no face. "I am ! " "Oh please don't look that way." "It's that dandelion," he said. "You've used it all up on yourself. That's why it won't work for me."
Montag doesn't admit to not loving Mildred, but even Clarisse can see that he has no feelings for anyone.
Later, he admits it to himself:
How do you get so empty? he wondered. Who takes it out of you? And that awful flower the other day, the dandelion! It had summed up everything, hadn't it? "What a shame! You're not in love with anyone !" And why not? Well, wasn't there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just one, wall but, so far, three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews, that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack of tree-apes that said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud. He had taken to calling them relatives from the very first.
Whereas Clarisse loves people-watching and nature, Mildred loves the people on TV. Montag begins to see how shallow he and his wife are compared to the passionate young girl.
What is Mildred's role in Fahrenheit 451?
Mildred's role is to showcase the vapid, pointless existence of the typical citizen in Fahrenheit 451. Her obsession with television and need to be just like everyone else -- to "fit in" -- causes her to become little more than an outlet for the opinions of other people. She is so disconnected from her own life that she refers to the cast of her favorite television show as "relatives" and "family."
He looked with dismay at the floor. "We burned an old woman with her books."
"It's a good thing the rug's washable." She fetched a mop and worked on it. "I went to Helen's last night."
"Couldn't you get the shows in your own parlour?"
"Sure, but it's nice visiting."
(Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Google Books)
Her mind is so filled with disconnected feelings and emotions that she has no response at all to his news that he killed a woman while working. It hasn't happened on her screens, and so it may as well have not happened at all. Even the television programs are not composed of story events, but of meaningless dialogue and sound effects. As he progresses in his development, Montag realizes how pointless his relationship with Mildred actually is.
Who is Mildred, and how are we introduced to her in Fahrenheit 451?
Mildred is Montag's wife and the exact opposite of Clarisse. When we first meet her, she has taken an overdose of drugs. She is lying on the bed with earphones on and
"...an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind." (pg 12)
Clarisse has just told Montag that he is unhappy, and although he denies it, he realizes that she is correct. As he looks at Mildred, he thinks,
"There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time." (pg 12)
Montag calls the paramedics and they put new blood into her. They tell Montag that this problem is so prevalent, they have invented a machine to take care of it. Doctors are not needed. Mildred does not remember it the next morning and continues to take her pills and drown herself in the TV, music, and her drugs. Montag and Mildred have not communicated for a long time. When Montag asks her where and when they met, she couldn't even tell him. (pg 43) He thinks,
"...suddenly she was so strange he couldn't believe he knew her at all.....And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown." (pg 43-44)
Mildred is a puppet of the government. While Clarisse respects thinking, Mildred is constantly watching the three walls of television, not entertaining a thought in her head. When Montag challenges her thinking with his idea of books and their importance, Mildred rebels and turns him in to the government. Clarisse stimulates his thinking processes; Mildred stagnates his thinking processes.
What is Mildred's relationship with her TV "relatives" in Fahrenheit 451?
In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Mildred seems to have a closer relationship with her television "relatives" than with any human being in her life, including Montag. It is Montag himself who calls them her relatives, and asks after them as though they were real people.
Mildred, however, does not appear to be deluded in a straightforward sense. She does not believe the people on television really are her relatives. Rather, she spends so much time in the atmosphere of their constant noise and drama that they have come to seem more real to her than anyone else.
This sense that the relatives are the most real people in her life does not come from any particular realism or skill in the way they are depicted on screen. Instead, Mildred has a diminished sense of reality in general. She is so detached from the world that these ersatz figures have become the nearest thing to a real family that she is capable of understanding.
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