An Act of Resistance While Watering the Flowers
in which I am convicted by a dystopian novel from 1953
Someone I have been thinking about lately is Mildred Montag—the wife of the main character in Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451. I feel confidently alone in this very specific thought process, so let me tell you a little about Millie:
She spends every day with constant sound in her ears from her seashell ear thimbles and, when home, she watches her wall-sized television screens constantly and considers the characters her family. She cares about nothing and refuses to even turn the noise off long enough to think about anything for herself. She has no memory of how she met her husband, Guy, and no awareness of the injustice that lines her streets.
At the end of the book, Guy ends up in the country, far from the city sounds and he wonders if Millie could handle the silence. She couldn’t. It would drive her crazy.
I think about Millie every time I reach for my ear buds when I am alone with my own thoughts.
What follows here are three excerpts taken directly from Fahrenheit 451 and then a version of my own retelling—a small act of resistance on my part because I don’t want to always shut up the silence.
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I will say that this was a really enjoyable creative exercise. :)
Wow. You just put me in that uncomfortable metal chair in my sophomore year English classroom. Haven’t thought of this book since. What an incredible connection. Can I request more of this? What book should be next??