Saturday, August 14, 2010

Overdoses and Talking Walls

Although previously Montag had decided not to tell his wife about her overdose, he later decided it was something she needed to know. Instead of getting upset or remorseful, Mildred straight up denied the fact that it happened.

" 'I wouldn't do a thing like that. Why would I do a thing like that?' she said.

" 'Maybe you took two pills and forgot and took two more, and forgot again and took two more, and were so dopey you kept right on until you had thirty or forty of them in you.'

" 'Heck,' she said, 'what would I want to go and do a silly thing like that for?'

" 'I don't know,' he said.

"She was quite obviously waiting for him to go. 'I didn't do that,' she said. 'Never in a billion years.' "

Obviously, Mildred was either denying the fact that it happened or actually believed that it never did happen. Either way, she chose not to believe her husband. She had no desire to listen to what he was saying or even consider what he was saying. This again shows the weakness of their relationship, and it also shows that she did not care one bit about her life.

At this point in the book, the readers find out about the walls. The walls talk. For about two thousand dollars a wall, a virtual world-typed thing would be installed. Mildred was obsessed with her walls; according to Montag that is all she would do every day. She would go to their living room, sit down, and talk to the walls. It seemed as if the people within that room would communicate with simulated people who lived in the walls. I really have no idea if this is the image Ray Bradbury was trying to portray, but that is how I pictured it. Frankly, I think that sounds psycho and it made me think of Fahrenheit 451 as even stranger than I already had thought.

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