Clarisse's 'monologue' in Ray Bardbury's Fahrenheit 451
p 31-33 (Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, 1953. A Del Ray Book, printed year 1976)
"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at last most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break window panes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lampposts, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hubcaps.' I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I"m abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"
"You sound so very old."
"Sometimes I'm ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid. My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long time ago when they had things different. They believed in responsibility, my uncle says. Do you know, I'm responsible. I was spanked when I needed it, years ago. And I do all the shopping and housecleaning by hand.
"But most of all," she said, "I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going. Sometimes I even go to the Fun Parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?"
"What?"
"People don't talk about anything."
"Oh, they must!"
"No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the joke boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and down, but it's only color and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long tiem back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people."
Note: The other character she is speaking to is of course, Guy Montag, the fireman whose job is not put out fire but to burn books.
Personal Note: I pretty much agree with everything Clarisse said, except for corporal punishment for children, especially In This Day And Age; I don't believe it'll work anymore, in our complex world. Children should learn that they shouldn't do bad things because it's bad, because of the consequences that are directly caused by it (skip homework = fall behind in school), instead of 'because their parents would punish them'. That said, sometimes unfortunately, it has got to a point where reasoning can no longer be introduced, at which point, if it works, and pro>con, then do it.
Nowadays: We have corporations trying to get classes to watch their promotional videos, in exchange for forking over some cash that schools need since the government have financially shortchanged them while still preaching that school is necessary with mandatory attendance, and in America, the No Child Left Undrafted Behind act.
- Currently in the United States, kids are making a sport out of abusing the homeless; Killing Homeless People For Fun, I worry that this could happen in Toronto, because we had this, a decade back (though isolated incidents), and we have the attitude to bred this sickness now. Homeless people aren't treated like people, the politicians speak of arresting them, speak of them being an eyesore, like they are garbage to be removed like in that Soylent Green (1973) movie. The mayor David Miller paints himself as an NDP, a Tommy Douglas, but affordable housing is not a reality as development has overwhelmingly been expensive condos which some formerly public/commercial space have been rezoned for, meanwhile emergency shelters are closing and aid workers aren't allowed to give the homeless blankets in an effort to force them into shelters that don't have space or aren't there anymore.
- TVs are getting bigger and bigger and are being sold as a /lifestyle/.
- Pop Culture references and good campy fun, but when that has become all that there is, out there for the most part, no more substance, no more originality, no more reaching for new inner heights, well, it does get pretty depressing doesn't it?
- Reality TV, it is kinda like, in the book, where the TV Walls comes with scripts, where the watcher can feel like they are socializing, by filling in certain lines. Me-me-me when me has become The Consumer who exist solely to consume.
"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at last most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break window panes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lampposts, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hubcaps.' I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I"m abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"
"You sound so very old."
"Sometimes I'm ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid. My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long time ago when they had things different. They believed in responsibility, my uncle says. Do you know, I'm responsible. I was spanked when I needed it, years ago. And I do all the shopping and housecleaning by hand.
"But most of all," she said, "I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going. Sometimes I even go to the Fun Parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?"
"What?"
"People don't talk about anything."
"Oh, they must!"
"No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the joke boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and down, but it's only color and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long tiem back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people."
Note: The other character she is speaking to is of course, Guy Montag, the fireman whose job is not put out fire but to burn books.
Personal Note: I pretty much agree with everything Clarisse said, except for corporal punishment for children, especially In This Day And Age; I don't believe it'll work anymore, in our complex world. Children should learn that they shouldn't do bad things because it's bad, because of the consequences that are directly caused by it (skip homework = fall behind in school), instead of 'because their parents would punish them'. That said, sometimes unfortunately, it has got to a point where reasoning can no longer be introduced, at which point, if it works, and pro>con, then do it.
Nowadays: We have corporations trying to get classes to watch their promotional videos, in exchange for forking over some cash that schools need since the government have financially shortchanged them while still preaching that school is necessary with mandatory attendance, and in America, the No Child Left Undrafted Behind act.
- Currently in the United States, kids are making a sport out of abusing the homeless; Killing Homeless People For Fun, I worry that this could happen in Toronto, because we had this, a decade back (though isolated incidents), and we have the attitude to bred this sickness now. Homeless people aren't treated like people, the politicians speak of arresting them, speak of them being an eyesore, like they are garbage to be removed like in that Soylent Green (1973) movie. The mayor David Miller paints himself as an NDP, a Tommy Douglas, but affordable housing is not a reality as development has overwhelmingly been expensive condos which some formerly public/commercial space have been rezoned for, meanwhile emergency shelters are closing and aid workers aren't allowed to give the homeless blankets in an effort to force them into shelters that don't have space or aren't there anymore.
- TVs are getting bigger and bigger and are being sold as a /lifestyle/.
- Pop Culture references and good campy fun, but when that has become all that there is, out there for the most part, no more substance, no more originality, no more reaching for new inner heights, well, it does get pretty depressing doesn't it?
- Reality TV, it is kinda like, in the book, where the TV Walls comes with scripts, where the watcher can feel like they are socializing, by filling in certain lines. Me-me-me when me has become The Consumer who exist solely to consume.