When Montag arrives home at the beginning of the story, we learn through a few specific clues, and a symbolic juxtaposition of Montag's emotional reaction with bomber jets flying overhead, that his wife has heavily overdosed on sleeping pills and is comatose, with her eyes open but unseeing.
Ultimately she's fine, as Montag is able to call the hospital and they send out a pair of "handymen", further illustrating the degree to which people have become synonymous with equipment, and she neither remembers nor acknowledges the overdose, refusing to believe that she would "do a silly thing like that". We never really get a clear answer as to whether she intended to commit suicide, or, as Montag suggests, she simply forgot that she had already taken pills and kept taking them until she had finished the bottle, which is itself a troubling diagnosis insofar as it tells us about Mildred's inability to care for herself. This is as frustrating an outcome for us as it is for Montag.
No comments:
Post a Comment