Transformation Of Clarisse In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Clarisse McClellan was a vital part of the development of the story and Montag’s transition into the person he becomes. Clarisse helps to trigger the transformation of Montag’s character from a book burning, law abiding, brainwashed citizen into a person who thinks outside of the box and questions the norm that everyone follows. From the first moment we see Clarisse we can all assume she is different;she does not conform to the culture of the people around her and in her community. The first that we see of Clarisse in the novel is that Clarisse is walking alone outside on the streets at night. What she is doing is very unusual in that society because most people stay in and sleep or watch TV or anything besides go out and have alone time. We see Montag and Clarisse get into a brief conversation and Clarisse says, “‘And you must be...the fireman.’ Her voice trailed off.” (Bradbury 6) This shows me that Clarisse isn’t very happy to talk to a fireman because she does not agree with his line of work because he burns books and she doesn’t agree with that. The idea of reading books and having them is a challenging idea in this society that is set in their ways and don’t accept books. Clarisse is much different than others.

Clarisse is able to relay what she sees to Montag to show evidence that the world is changing for the worse. She talks about how houses used to have porches where people sat and talked. Talking is a form of communication that can be used to relay ideas and thoughts and opinions which can change people’s view on certain ideas. The government tries to push their agenda on the citizens to make sure there are no conflicting ideas or challenging opinions on the laws and their negative effects. To make sure they could minimize the spread of ideas the government outlaws front porches and tears them all off of the houses so people can’t sit and think for