Unrest in the House of Montag: Fahrenheit 451 and the Origins of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Unrest in the House of Montag: Fahrenheit 451 and the Origins of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Ray Bradbury has issues with women
The world of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is not just his dystopian vision of the future, but ultimately an allegory for the Cold War-era America in which he lived. Written and published during the height of McCarthyism, 451 is equal parts science fiction and political critique, addressing the then-prevalent cultures of paranoia and exceptionalism in American society.
Bradbury also addresses and criticizes the role that society has created for women as simple housewives, but this raises an important question: is he criticizing the 1950s housewife as a social construct, or women as a whole for wholly embracing the norm? Based on how the female characters in the novel are depicted, a feminist reading of Fahrenheit 451 reveals a troublingly misogynist undercurrent running throughout the novel, especially through the eyes of our protagonist, Guy Montag. This paper attempts to analyze the women of Bradbury’s dystopia, and demonstrate how his narrative voice is ultimately complicit in furthering male chauvinism and eroding female agency.
Right from the novel’s outset, Bradbury’s use of language and tone reveals several interesting nuances in how the narrative views women. Female characters are unilaterally described in terms of their physical attributes, from Mrs. Phelps’ “sun-fired hair” (92), to Mildred’s “eyes all glass” (11). The rhetorical effect this has on how we, the readers, perceive these characters, is twofold: one, it draws attention to the image of the 1950s housewife, and, consequently, that era’s obsession with beauty (Ritchie: 725) given the narrative’s focus on features such as hair (Ritchie: 731); and two, it serves as a rather scathing critique of that same obsession, forcing the reader to view these cultural standards of beauty through the lens of the superficial.
While it could be argued that this is a critique of conformity, the double standard in how the sexes are depicted physically would beg to differ. Women are depicted as extremely unflattering, as above, but the men, meanwhile, have ‘charming [grins]’ (113), and sport ‘blue-steel shaved but unshaved [looks]’ (30). Certainly, it is conformity being depicted in both cases, but the male-female dichotomy is undeniable: men conform in the same way that soldiers conform, with their matching uniforms and haircuts, whereas the women adhere to a standard propagated by glamour magazines and advertising campaigns (Ritchie: 724). The difference in language is clear, creating a stark contrast in how the reader is expected to parse Montag’s fellow firemen versus Mildred and her fellow housewives — the firemen are portrayed as being simply complicit in a system that exploits them, whereas the housewives are histrionic and unreasonable, likened to ‘hysterical fish’ (90), deserving only of Montag’s verbal abuse. (93)
This contrast is further demonstrated when the characters of Beatty and Mildred are compared with one another. Both characters serve as different obstacles in Montag’s journey throughout the novel. In Beatty’s case, he symbolizes and embodies the system of destruction and fear that Montag grows to despise and oppose, whereas Mildred represents how deeply entrenched that same system has become in the public consciousness. Despite how both of these characters have identical, antagonistic roles within the context of the story, the way Montag treats both in Fahrenheit 451’s third and final act could not be more different. As the novel reaches its climax, attention is still drawn to Mildred’s ‘face floured with powder’ (108). She continues to mumble, nonsensically, and exits the story’s proceedings without pomp or circumstance. Beatty, the object of his enmity, meanwhile, is allowed a final, dramatic confrontation, his face ‘illumined faintly by the smoldering foundation’ (111). That final sequence of events shows that while both Mildred and Beatty oppose Montag’s quest for enlightenment, only one has ultimately earned his respect, even worthy of a final ‘Goodbye, Captain’ (115).
To further emphasize the novel’s problematic gender politics, we need look no further than in how Montag treats Mildred and her friends. He is clearly not above verbal abuse: he is seen threatening to “knock [Mildred and co.] down and kick [them] out the door” (98), nor does he appear to be a stranger to domestic violence, as he ‘takes hold’ of Mildred, slapping her across the face. (63) This form of behavior is entirely normal for the Cold War-era husband, who take for granted “the right to beat or abuse their wives” (Friedan: 21). This acting out is born of their “increasing frustration and desperation” (Friedan: 21), which we can clearly see is what motivates Montag in that kitchen scene.
The fact that he does not demonstrate similarly violent tendencies toward Beatty or his other former comrades — even as they are hauling him away, axes drawn — implies that such occurrences are normal for the Montag household. This is consistent when we take Mildred’s escapist tendencies into account; she and her friends, as a support network, bond over “shared strengths and resources”, that is, the television families, as acknowledging their lack of control over their daily exploitation would be “psychologically demoralizing” (Hooks: 46). By depicting Mildred and her friends as hysterical, unwilling to accept the flaws of their status quo — through no fault of their own, as Hooks points out — the reader is expected to take Montag’s side, and is therefore made complicit in his misogyny.
Certainly, not all female characters are similarly debased, but are still universally deprived of the freedom and control that men like Montag and Faber are handed. Clarisse McClellan is arguably the most egregious example of this: in contrast to Mildred, and every other member of the female cast, is depicted totally positively, with paragraphs of prose spent on ‘the soft and constant light’ of her face (5), or how her dress ‘was white, and it whispered’ (3), or how she ‘licked her lips’ (19) in the rain. As if the fact that Montag’s fascination with Clarisse, an underage, sixteen-year old girl, is described in images bordering on the sexually-charged was not concerning enough, the character ultimately serves no purpose but to set him on his path to enlightenment. I would perhaps make the argument that Clarisse is perhaps an early example of the archetype that would later evolve into what we currently know as the ‘manic pixie dream girl’; her eccentricities, her lack of any real role in the story apart from her purpose as a narrative impetus, the prose’s almost egregious emphasis on her femininity — all characteristic of the archetype. No textual evidence suggesting any sort of inner life is given, nor does she make any real consequential decisions of her own.
Arguably the most damning point of all is that Mildred, at the very least, makes her own decisions: she decides, on her own volition, to make the call to turn Montag in. Clarisse, by comparison, makes no choice of the sort, nor is she given any real opportunity to do so, and yet we are expected to hail her as a powerful female character while decrying Mildred’s betrayal. This contrast only further demonstrates the Cold War idealization of the “God-given subservience of women”: by finally exerting some semblance of control over her circumstances, Mildred manages to “destroy the home and make [a slave] of [Montag]” (Friedan: 110), pushing the audience against her, in favor of Montag. Once again we see how the novel is all too willing to excuse its chauvinistic attitudes under the pretense of dramatic conflict and opposition.