When reading, I decided that the relationship between Montag and Millie was something that caught my interest. While he knows that his wife is basically a slave to televised media and concludes that he does not really love her, he reveals his books to her risking everything he has and attempts to get her to read them all. Also, I find it odd that he felt it significant to remember when and how they first met even though he does not even love her.
Montag is aware that Millie is mentally empty for the most part, and knows that he could not love her (Bradbury 44). I find it ironic and interesting that he gets so upset at the thought of not crying when she dies that he actually ends up crying (Bradbury 44). I think this is upsetting because he wants to love Mildred, but he cannot bring himself to. My thought is that he truly wants to feel some sort of emotion towards his wife, which he attempts to do through showing her his books. He wanted to share what he knows with her so that maybe she would realize that things were wrong and he could relate to her, eventually loving her again. He wanted to love the real Millie, whoever that is, not the thoughtless being that lived in his house.
It stood out to me how Montag could not even remember how he and Mildred met, but he desperately wanted to. We are human, it is not natural to forget how you met the person you are spending your entire life with. I think that Montag does not like the idea of Millie being unimportant to him because he knows that she could and should be a large part of his life. Through that logic, he finds it important to remember how they met. Millie even admits that she does not find it important to remember when they met (Bradbury 43). This is an example of a relationship that is broken beyond repair. They let society get the best of them.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1954
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