A reasonable question, but inane and shallow replies in each response.

Montag had no time for a relationship. The entire story takes, what!?, three maybe four weeks in its entirety. Nor was that the reason for Clarisse's role in the story. Hers was a persona (L. "brightness") of inspiration and motivation. Something we all need from time to time. In Montag's case, it became intellectual, social, and even spiritual by the end of the book.

I have had HS students inquire about this relationship topic before. As Mr. Dark suggests, the Q is raised in the perspective of young readers of the 21st Century. The rile from Nard, just maybe, is fanned by the superficialness that resulted in all of the above posts.

In view of the limp, watery quips above,
"What is being done in teaching and truly discussing the text?" would be may challenge.
----------------------------------
WOW: Ok, I just returned from a visit to the "Most Interesting Character" heading!
In this case after reading the comments, I think Nard is 100% on target. And my concern about "how the book is being taught" screams even louder. There seems no appreciation for the importance of the work. Simply stated, Sad!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 11-22-2004).]

Bumping up this old thread to add a quote and a few observations. The quote is from Sam Weller's book, The Bradbury Chronicles, page 274: "Truffaut envisioned the character of Clarisse as being older and more seductive, which irked Ray, who never intended any sexual tension between his characters Clarisse and Montag."

The observations: many readers have interpreted the story in ways the author says he didn't intend. A thread here goes into how F451 is widely perceived as being about censorship, Ray says it is not. There is a story of a class (college, I believe) so bent on telling Ray what his book was about which he insisted it wasn't that he told them to F off and stormed out.

Some of Ray's writing is open to interpretation and F451 seems moreso than most. Certain readers have complained about the scanty descriptions even of major characters which the imaginations of some seem to have filled in. Clarisse appears to represent a youthful innocence long since passed from Montag to the point where he has almost forgotten, and needs her to remind him.

Although they almost certainly had no intimate contact, (unless quite frankly they went behind both the author's and the reader's backs), Montag and Clarisse's relationship may or may not be characterized as what has since become known as an "emotional affair": that is, when a married person takes all deep feelings and intimate emotions to a friend of the opposite sex without undue physical contact. This may be a little hard to define as often married people do have close friendships with members of the opposite sex, but it's pretty clear in the book that Montag had absolutely no emotional connection with his wifty wife but was quite attached to Clarisse.

As for the question of what happened to Clarisse, raised a number of times elsewhere, her fate plays into what in fiction has been termed the "unreliable narrator." The information that she was killed in a hit-and-run came only from Montag's wife Millie, who was:

1. An indifferent airhead quite possibly incapable of telling a straight story if a straight story was to be had. They lived in a police state where reliable sources regarding accident reports, burials, etc., couldn't be consulted by common citizens. She may have been repeating something that she heard happened to somebody sometime who she thought/hoped was Clarisse.

2. Shallow and indifferent as Millie was, if she was capable of such an emotion as jealousy, she had every reason for it based on Montag's close attention to Clarisse, platonic or not. So, when he asked what happened to her, Millie blew off the answer that would most hurt him and make him least inclined to go looking her up. In simple language: THE BITCH LIED.

My vote: Clarisse escaped to turn up later among the book people. Bradbury seems to agree as this appears in the play version (which I haven't seen or read.) Whether Millie was mistaken or actually lying would be revealed only through Clarisse, who knows the particulars--that is, whether her "death" was deliberately staged to get her to safety, or whether she just left and knew nothing about supposedly having died. (Does the play cover this?)

More here: https://raybradburyboard.com/ev...1083901/m/6791055372

And here: https://raybradburyboard.com/ev...477024316#3477024316

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
...(Does the play cover this?)...

Not that I recall. (But, as we have seen in the other thread, my recollection of the end of the movie is false, so don't take my word for it!)

In view of my 2004!!! reply, I guess I took F451 seriously when in the trenches. There is so much to observe and learn from the text. It does take time.

I may teach it next in my adult class if asked for a return! Kids don't appreciate the intricacies unless walked through the text and allusions are discussed. That is a key element of the book. They need the answers and pictures NOW from their i-pods...

RB~
http://www.soarnorthcountry.com/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fjp451,

I now join Ray in telling people who want to make an affair with Clarisse, only with all of the other letters added after the F, which you prudes probably won't let me do here, but just wait until I hear that asinine suggestion in a classroom.

Not because I have something against affairs (insert "comment against prudes" here), but because simpletons insist on turning any mixed gender relationship into a sexual one. Not because I have anything against sex (insert "comment against prudes" here), but because sappy jejune quarter-wits insist on turning a woman into a "romantic interest".

The creators of female characters in "Tank Girl", "What the Bleep Do We Know?", and Foamy the Squirrel may (or may not) have made Grade B material, but they are superior to a lot of chuckleheaded buffoons insisting on a romantic relationship by refusing to cave in to that simplistic ASSumption.

quote:

Originally posted by fjp451:
...I may teach it next in my adult class if asked for a return!...

Presumably NOT the karate class! (Yes, I clicked through to your profile on the college website!)

quote:

Originally posted by dragonfly:
...superior to a lot of chuckleheaded buffoons insisting on a romantic relationship by refusing to cave in to that simplistic ASSumption.

Ha! Well said, dragonfly!

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a stupid question.

Phil, you presume correctly. You are a regular sleuth! (That's my other teaching passion!)

Here is the updated outline. I hope it is well received. Any suggestions, in view of past experiences with RB sessions of your own? This will be a different audience than what I have played to for so many years!! Thanks.
f

http://www.soarnorthcountry.co...us-frank-palumbo.pdf

Hi Frank, I think that course sounds terrific. Where do I sign up? Of course, the weekly commute might be a bit problematic for me...

The only suggested addition I would make would be to include that wonderful video of Ray made for the Big Read project. (You probably know the one; it's here: http://www.neabigread.org/book...eit451/filmguide.php )

I think it's a really quick way of getting across the major points about who Bradbury is and what his achievements have been.

Phil!! Got it and will do. Perfect. I may open the show with this

The toughest thing with Mr. B.........there is so much darn great stuff!
f

Right! That would be quite a commute!

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
The quote is from Sam Weller's book, The Bradbury Chronicles, page 274: "Truffaut envisioned the character of Clarisse as being older and more seductive, which irked Ray, who never intended any sexual tension between his characters Clarisse and Montag."

In reading JOURNAL OF "Fahrenheit 451" by Francois Truffaut as found in chapter 5 of Jerry Weist's BRADBURY-An Illustrated Life, it seems Truffaut was committed to NOT make Clarisse come across as a love interest to Montag. And in many viewings of the film, it has never seemed so to me either. On the DVD version, however, can be found a trailer which kind of leads one to think so. Pfff, ridiculous.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
There is a story of a class (college, I believe) so bent on telling Ray what his book was about which he insisted it wasn't that he told them to F off and stormed out.

In the foreword to THEY HAVE NOT SEEN THE STARS-The Collected Poetry of Ray Bradbury, he writes about this incident. Out of it came the poem 'Why Didn't Someone Tell Me About Crying in the Shower?'

I love Ray Bradbury.

quote:

Originally posted by Linnl:
In reading JOURNAL OF "Fahrenheit 451" by Francois Truffaut as found in chapter 5 of Jerry Weist's BRADBURY-An Illustrated Life, it seems Truffaut was committed to NOT make Clarisse come across as a love interest to Montag...

Another example, I'm afraid, of where Sam Weller has presented Ray's recollection of events as fact. This is one of the downsides of authorised biographies.

My own reading of the F451 film is that Clarisse is Montag's TEACHER. That, after all, is her job. Montag is shown being summoned to the "headmster's" office (the Fire Chief's office), where he has to wait outside while he hears other "boys" being told off for bad behaviour.

Truffaut was good at classroom scenes. See Les Quatre Cent Coups!

Some people are forever sappily trying to make every relationship a sexual or romantic one.

quote:

Originally posted bt dragonfly:
Some people are forever sappily trying to make every relationship a sexual or romantic one.

Yeah, Marketing folk, even 44 years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
My own reading of the F451 film is that Clarisse is Montag's TEACHER. That, after all, is her job. Montag is shown being summoned to the "headmster's" office (the Fire Chief's office), where he has to wait outside while he hears other "boys" being told off for bad behaviour.

Truffaut was good at classroom scenes. See Les Quatre Cent Coups!

Thanks for the movie suggestion, will seek it out!

Yes, I can see that she is very much a REAL teacher to Montag in that she is curious about & engaged in life, something Montag is not accustomed to finding in his society. But her avocational passions, it seems, didn't jive with the "professional" stolidness of the schooling regimen.

Hmm... just what is Traffaut saying here about education?

Interestingly, my first exposure to Truffaut was his acting part in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. I need to go back and watch it. His character used the Zoltan Kolaly Method of music education. I remember having a little wow moment, because at the time, my Dad was teaching it to his music education student teachers.