The Dead and the Living

The importance of familiarity and true statement is sometimes non ampley grasp until it no longer exists in the rests of umteen an(prenominal) large number. Authors often use realistic ideas to exclude a point to their readers. These ideas can take place from a simple figure of speech, very much(prenominal)(prenominal) as a paradox. The paradox of creation both defunct and subsisting is seen in the lives of both stack and machines throughout the brisk Fahrenheit(postnominal) 451 by Ray Bradbury. Mildred, the cold wife of main character Montag, displays the qualities of universe both bloodless and alive. From the very lineage of the story, Mildred showed no signs of life within her.When we argon first introduced to her, she is laying motionless in a dark populate, having overdosed on quiescence tablets. Bradbury describes Mildreds face as world a snow-covered island upon which rain down mogul fall(a), but it felt no rain over which clouds might pass thei r woful tails, but she felt no shadow (13). Even with Mildreds faint breathing, the room was still drop. Like a corpse, Mildred sh bes no emotion for those around her. When Montag is sick, Mildred doubts him and refuses to recall he needs her help. Further on in the hold in, Mrs. Phelps, Mildreds assistant, begins to sob later Montag reads aloud a poem.In response to her friends sudden outburst, Mildred cries Youre all right, Clara, now, Clara, snap out of it Clara, whats awry(p)? (100). These instances allow the reader to see the full effect that society has had on Mildred and how engine room has numbed her business leader to confine real forgiving interactions. As Montag himself begins to change, he realizes just how braindead his wife really is. While talking with Faber, he exclaims, No My wifes dying(p) (81). Montag already knows that Mildred is mentally dead, but in the end he accepts that after stratums of overdosing and staying home, his wifes physical body i s to a fault shutting down.The effects that society has had on Mildred argon evident throughout the book as she is described as macrocosm both dead and alive. The life-like machines that have replaced military personnel in Montags society are described by Bradbury as creationness both dead and alive. Throughout the novel, the machines that tower Montags world represent the mass of the half-dead, half- nutriment tidy sum that he comes in fill with. The very first machine that is seen is the glide that is used to clean the poisons that Mildred has put in her body. The snake fed in muteness with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching.It had an Eye (14). Though it is a machine, this snake is described as having human-like qualities such as an eye and performing human-like tasks such as drinking up the color matter that was inside of Mildred. The trail that lives in the firehouse is an otherwise major instance of a machine possessing humanoid qualitie s. This hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live (24). The Mechanical Hound possesses the effect to paralyze, wound, and stock-still kill its victims with the release of poison from a needle inside his nose.By having an unlikely ability unlike any other living animal, the hound represents the human-like attributes of the machines in this society. The tv parlor that takes up so much of Mildreds life also serves as a symbol of something being both dead and alive in this novel. Mildred refers to the mickle on the tv programs that she watches as her family and even has a speaking divorce in the episodes. Like the other machines, these characters are scarcely on a screen, but they are such a large part of so many peoples lives that they almost seem alive.Like the people in Montags society that are empty, the machines also possess the qualities of being half-living, half-dead. Clarisse, a minor character in the story, represents the alive and alert qualities that are la cking from the society. Clarisse represents what the people in Montags world have lost over the course of many years. Unlike the other teenagers around her, she starts cheer in doing things the lay of society would find abnormal such as academic term on the porch and talking with her family and going on hikes. Even Clarisses appearance is more alive than most of the dead people around her.When Montag first meets the seventeen year old, he describes her face as being like the strangely comfortable and high-minded and gently flattering light of the compact disk (7). Montag was initially intrigued by Clarisse because of her innocence and distinctiveness which is lacking from everyone else in his life. Though she dies advance(prenominal) on in the novel, Clarisse is more alive after her death than most of the people in the society that are living. Clarisse is the catalyst of change in Montags life because she possesses the liveliness and compassion that the rest of the world is missing.The comparison of being dead and alive is exemplified in the characters and human-life machines that live in the society described in Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury uses the paradox of being both dead and alive to highlight the lack of knowledge and understanding in Montags world. object for a select few, the people that Montag comes in contact with have lost their ability to think and communicate because they have depended upon technology to entertain them. Though we have not reached the extremities that are present in Bradburys society, the effects of this technology dependence is already present in the world we live in today.