preview

What Is Clarisse Symbolize In Fahrenheit 451

Decent Essays

Clarisse opens Montag's eyes to the world around him, and kickstarts his curiosity. Before granger, before Faber, even before Clarisse, Montag thought nothing much of his life at all. He went through the motions and never strayed from what society wanted. Then, suddenly, Clarisse walked into his life, quite literary. "'It's fine work. Monday burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, burn 'me to ashes, then burn the ashes. That's our official slogan'"(8) Montag believes whole-heatedly that his work is "fine work" believes there is nothing wrong with relentlessly burning books, but Clarisse subtly seems to disagree, "Do you ever read any of the books you burn?"'(8) it can be assumed Montag hasn't ever read the book, assumed that his small …show more content…

As Montag enters his home, winding down for the night, all he can see in his mind, on the walls, in the darkness, Clarisse. "She had a very thin face like a dial of a small clock seen faintly in the dark room in the middle of the night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it had to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darknesses, but moving also toward a new sun"(10). Although all these new revelations Clarisse echos to Montag are confusing him and messing with his mind, (darkness) the words Clarisse speaks and the ideas she talks about spark a new interest in Montag, start a new chapter in his life. Although he doesn't know what will come of it, he seems to be hopeful, hence, "moving also toward a new sun"(10) Clarisse is that new sun, the new hope in his life,and the coming days will of course still be filled with darkness and uncertainty, a light, somewhere back in the farthest corners of Montag's mind, has flicked on. Only a spark now, but Montag himself knows, how fast fire spreads

Get Access