Characterization in "Fahrenheit 451"

Montag and Clarisse

I chose to characterize Clarisse in part one of Fahrenheit 451. I believe that Clarisse looks like a skinny seventeen year old girl, with blonde hair, blue eyes, about 5' 6", pale, and looks very innocent. Her personality is crazy, insane, but honest. I think her role in the story is to keep things in perspective for the main character Montag. Clarisse says one thing to Montag in part one of the story that I feel is most important so far. "Are you happy" (Bradbury 10) This is the most important question asked my Clarisse because it starts the thinking process by Montag. He starts asking himself...is he really happy? This started to make Montag think about the "old world" And he questions the society that he lives in. The most important quote said about her I believe is "The girl? She was a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious. I'm sure, from what I saw from her school record she didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That cane embarrassing. You ask why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep up at it. The poor girl is better off dead." (Bradbury 60) This is the most important quote said about Clarisse because it shows that she is not the same as everyone else and has a different mind set toward the world, and I feel that this will be a huge part of the story.

Now you ask yourself, what makes Clarisse different from many people in her society? I believe that Clarisse is different because she wants to know why things are the way they are. She is very curious about everything. For example; she thinks that firemen used to put out fires. Also she talks about how billboards used to be 20 feet long instead of 200 feet long. These are things that most other people in her society don't think about. Now that Clarisse has met Montag, what is Clarisse's overall attitude towards firemen? Overall, I think she thought that firemen were scary from what people say. But she meets Montag and age isn't afraid of him at all. It says this on page 7. "So many people are. Afraid of firemen, I mean, But you're just a man after all." Fahrenheit 451 so far is a very engaging book, and I can't wait to read more of it!