Fahrenheit 451 pp. 21-40

Hello.
At his point, I can’t believe—won’t believe—that there is a single person reading this book who doesn’t like it. I am so drawn into the story. Perhaps it is just because I am a bibliophile, but I love this book. The descriptions are so wonderful.
Again, I don’t think that I am confused about anything in the book, though this section is far more complicated than the last. Sometimes you have to read things twice to understand what Bradbury is trying to convey, but I don’t find myself getting horribly confused over the actual plot of the story.
There are two questions posed to me, but I cant choose between them, one being a personal hobbyhorse and the other something that I have a lot to say on (though I seem to have something to say about everything, as anyone in class will tell you). The first of these questions is why does Clarisse, an almost-seventeen year old, seem so much more mature than Mildred a thirty year-old? Why does Bradbury compare the two?
The second is do you think that people in the book and people today are the same or different? Why?
I will answer the first one first, as I have a tendency to rant a bit when set on the second topic.
I believe that Clarisse seems so much older than Mildred because she is thinking about real issues. Clarisse is concerned with what is happening to the youth of this country, she takes time with her life, spots to smell the roses, as the saying goes. Generally she is a very inquisitive person who refuses to be force-fed the history the government offers. She thinks about the “old” firemen, ones who actually put out fires and dreams of a time when books were not illegal.
Mildred on the other hand is rather self-centered. She seems to be concerned most with this play she has sent her box tops in for. She wants the fourth wall of her surround TV to be put in, claiming that Montag is selfish and never thinks of her when he tells her that the TV walls are expensive. And—possibly most importantly—she is perfectly fine with the information that is being fed to her. She doesn’t question anything. She likes her TVs and her Earshells. She never stops to taste the rain or smell the flowers. She is fine with her own little virtual reality. On the other hand, she has this deeper part of her character that takes sleeping pills to commit suicide and is, perhaps, unsatisfied with the way her life is going, though we have no real way of knowing.
I believe that author makes the contrast because he is showing that it is not experience that makes us wise, but just knowledge of the world. Mildred has never tried to find anything deeper in her life because she is happy with her TVs, Clarisse is born inquisitive—a desire for knowledge that is fed by her mysterious uncle—and wants something more. Perhaps that he also wants to show that not all children fit the stereotypical mold that some seem so apt to put them in.
Now on to the second question. Yes. I firmly believe that this is a future we are heading to and Ray Bradbury was farseeing to predict a future like this in 1950. Today, anywhere you go you can find someone on a computer or a cell phone. Children in second grade worry about having the latest technology. People spend more and more time in their own little worlds, drawing their own likes closer to them while pushing away real humans and books, which can teach us so much. We are going to loose wisdom if we stop reading. Not everything can be found on the internet, sometimes you have to look a little farther than your computer screen to find something, and when you are not looking for anything at all, what you need is not your Playstation, but a book, where you can learn something other than how to kill the next enemy that pops up. I have been told I am smart, whether I am or not isn’t relevant, but everything that I learned, every piece of information I have collected has come from a book. The newest generation doesn’t read anything, they have no idea what they are loosing.
Goodbye.