Metaphors In Fahrenheit 451

In the classic novel Fahrenheit 451 written by Ray Bradbury, the characters Mildred and Guy Montag are in a relationship where Montag controls Mildred. This dynamic is supported by metaphors relating to the ocean being used often when describing Mildred, and moon related metaphors often being used for Montag. The reason those metaphors support this observation on their relationship is that the moon controls the tide in the ocean. On top of that, Montag does numerous actions throughout the book that prove Mildred would practically be nothing, possibly even dead, without Montag.
Mildred is the submissive person in their relationship, often taking lead of Montag. When Montag gets home, he finds her lying on the bed, with her seashells in her ears “on the shore of her mind sleeping tight” (10) with the empty bottle of sleeping pills on the floor next to her. Had Montag not mistaken her unconsciousness for being asleep, she would have died. Bradbury goes further to describe her inability to wait up for her husband, talking about how she indeed is not there

When the book is referring to Guy, they often call him Montag, and this is never done when describing Mildred, though this is the last name of both of them. In this instance when “Mildred kept peering in at it with a blank expression as Montag paced the floor and came back and squatted down and read a page as many as ten times, aloud,” (67). Montag is doing all of the reading while Mildred is sitting there, doing practically nothing. Not only is Mildred not called by their last name, but Montag is called by it, the day of the moon, which controls the tide. He often steps over Mildred, or as Beatty puts it, “You think you can walk on water,” (111). Montag tries to do just that, and it doesn’t always go down as smoothly as he would