To be isolated means that someone is separated from everyone else. Montag seems to be psychologically isolated throughout most of the story because he goes against what the majority of his society believes. Everyone believes in finding pleasure wherever and whenever they can. They love their TVs, radios, fast cars, and sleeping pills more than helping others or self-edification through learning. As a result, Montag expresses his feelings of psychological isolation in the following ways:
"Nobody listens anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me. I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it'll makes sense" (82).
The above passage shows Montag's frustration with feeling different, which in return makes him feel isolated. Another time that Montag strives to breakdown the isolation that he feels is when he asks his wife's friends about their husbands and children. Their responses are unfeeling and disconnected, which disappoints Montag and makes him feel like he's the only one who understands what is missing from life. His feelings of isolation are described as follows:
"Montag said nothing but stood looking at the women's faces as he had once looked at the faces of saints in a strange church he had entered when he was a child. The faces of those enameled creatures meant nothing to him. . . But there was nothing, nothing; it was a stroll through another store, and his currency strange and unusable there. . . So it was now, in his own parlor, with these women. . . Their faces grew haunted with silence" (95).
This passage shows how there is a huge disconnect between what Montag knows and understands and what the women understand. It's as if there's a gap that cannot be crossed between Montag and members of his society.
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