Character Foils In Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury's book, Fahrenheit 451, is a story set in a less imaginative world; where books are illegal and being a curious person is strange. In this story, there are characters that are foils of one another. Character foils are when two characters are completely opposites on one another. The characters that foils can be found in are Clarisse and Mildred. Mildred is unnattractive, disinterested, dark and damaged; while Clarisse is beautiful, curious, pure and innocent. In this story, the author Ray Bradbury does not lack detail, whether it be about the scenery or a person. So when Clarisse and Mildred are described through Guy’s eyes, it can clearly be compared that Clarisse is this beautiful girl while Mildred is very unattractive. As Guy remembers Clarisse’s face he thinks, “The girl's face was there, really quite beautiful in memory; astonishing, in fact” (8). Later in the story, as Guy is ‘sick’ and laying in bed with his eyes closed. Mildred stand over him. He never even opened his eyes and he describes how he memorized her. “Her hair burnt by chemicals to a brittle straw, her eyes with a kind of cataract unseen but suspect for behind the pupils, the reddened pouting lips, …show more content…
As we know Clarisse is still very young, she may not have experienced everything this negative world has to give yet, like Mildred might of. Clarisse is still pure and innocent; she is described “Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. It was a look, almost of pale surprise” (3). Constantly she is compared to something pale or “milk-white” (3); As that is the color of purity and innocence. As for Mildred, when we first are introduced to her she was almost dead; she was filled with sleeping pills that had to be sucked from her stomach. Guy questions “Did it drink up the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years?”