Option 1
Ray Bradbury's tone towards Clarisse is somewhat opposite to his tone towards Beatty, he wants to make Clarisse seem more affectionate and like someone who steered Montag's life into a better direction while Beatty wanted to stop Montag from heading in the wrong direction by reading books. Bradbury makes Beatty seem like someone who wanted to prevent Montag from changing. In this novel, conformity is one of the main issues in society. Everyone does the same things and they don't really pay attention or question why they are doing what they are doing. They sort of just follow the crowd and go on with their lives.
Bradbury makes Clarisse seem like the outcast, however she impacts Montag's life greatly and shows him that not everything is as it seems. Clarisse's main role was to change Montag's perception of society and show him how much the world has changed. When Montag meets Clarisse, he realizes that she is not like everyone else and that she thinks for herself. Bradbury's tone is supportive and shows us that Montag's life may change for the better because of Clarisse. As Montag's life goes on he realizes that he has not seen Clarisse in a while. He asks Mildred if she has seen Clarisse recently and she says that Clarisse got ran over. Montag gets sad and wonders why things happen. Clarisse's death makes him want to read books in order to find the answers to his questions.
On the other hand, Bradbury's tone towards Beatty shows us that Beatty isn't someone great and that he was doing the opposite of what Clarisse had done to Montag. Clarisse had changed Montag's perception however Beatty was trying to show Montag that it is not worth risking his life just to read books and think differently. During this time, it is considered illegal to read books. When people were caught with books, their books were burned and the person was arrested. Although it seems like Beatty was trying to help Montag not get arrested, he wasn't doing him a favor either by preventing him from thinking for himself. However, it's a bit weird that Beatty knows so much about books, maybe he used to read them secretly in the past and doesn't want Montag to waste his time. Clearly Bradbury wants the readers to know that Beatty is both good and bad towards Montag, depending on how you view the situation.
Overall, it can be argued that Bradbury's tone towards Clarisse is much more supportive and helpful than his tone towards Beatty, the person who tried to stop Montag from thinking for himself and burned his books. His use of diction and syntax allows the readers to interpret what he writes in certain ways. He makes Clarisse seem like a sweet young girl who lit a spark in Montag's mind while he makes Beatty look like the mean antagonist.
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