Fahrenheit 451: Clarisse

Hello Clarisse. Alright now that the terrible and inevitable reference is out of the way I'll focus on this blog post. Clarisse McClellan is a naive, fun, outgoing, and curious seventeen year old girl who moves in next to Guy Montag early on in the novel. At first he regards her as an oddball and does not really like her, but after time she grows on him and when she disappears Guy Montag truly begins to miss her and takes her attitude and the lessons he learned from her to heart. Also when he talks to Captain Beatty about her he says that most people dislike her because of her tendency to ask why something occurs rather than how. In the novel it is assumed that she is killed by a car crash, or so it is said. In the film however when Montag finds the group of exiles she is among them and Bradbury is said to have liked this alternative ending much more than the original he wrote for the book. Essentially because of her nature she is a foil to Mildred. Mildred does nothing to help Montag and essentially causes him to stay the way that he is, not helping his character development at all. Clarisse however is a very positive influence on Montag setting in turn all of the events of the novel for the most part. It is arguable that had Montag never encountered her he would have remained for the most part the same throughout the entire course of the novel and not character development or progression would have occurred. In my opinion I like the ending where she is killed instead of hiding out with the exiles. The ending is good as well as it would make it seem like she is a potential romantic interest for Montag after the city is bombed, but I'm more for the bleak and dreary endings. I thought Clarisse was a very important and likable character in the novel.