# data[].attributes.body
Ray Bradbury shows that even the seemingly smallest and most insignificant interactions can have a huge effect, whether positive or negative through Montag’s interactions with Clarisse.

“‘I’m antisocial they say. I don't’ mix. It’s so strange. I’m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn’t it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this.’ She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off a tree in the front yard. ‘Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don’t things it’s social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? [...] but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don’t; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film teacher. That’s not social to me at all. […] I guess I’m everything they say I am, all right. I haven’t any friends. That’s supposed to prove I’m abnormal.’”(Bradbury 26,27).

Through this interaction and others previously, Montag is able to provide Clarisse with social interaction outside of her family, and in return, Clarisse shows Montag a new way of thinking and introduces him to the idea of asking questions and not blindly following orders. In dreams, chestnuts on their own represent prosperity in wealth, life, and fertility,  picking up fallen chestnuts represents showing trust in your love life, and picking chestnuts off of a tree, on the other hand, represents infidelity (Venefica).

“‘Have you heard of rubbing it under your chin? Look.’ She touched her chin with the flower, laughing. ‘Why?’ ‘If it rubs off, it means I’m in love. Has it?’ He could hardly do anything else but look. ‘Well?’ ‘You’re yellow under there.’ ‘Fine! Let’s try you now.’ ‘It won’t work for me.’ [...] ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What a shame,’ she said ‘You’re not in love with anyone.’ ‘Yes I am!’ (Bradbury ).

Clarisse shows Montag how to enjoy the little things in life you would normally ignore; like talking, driving slowly, walking, the rain, and dandelions. Dandelions are normally seen as weeds and something that needs to be removed, but Clarisse sees the beauty in them. They are normally one of the first flowers you see blooming, and they are very strong, being able to root and grow in concrete. The pollen not rubbing off on Montag’s chin clearly foreshadows Mildred and his relationship falling out, but Clarisse’s may symbolize her “in love” with Montag, not necessarily romantic, more so a father-daughter love or a platonic/friendship love.

# data[].attributes.body
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, ... Ephesians 6: 1-5 ESV (100)

People will often take this (and many others) quote out of context to try and support their point. They will use 'Children, obey your parents' and 'Slaves obey your masters' as justification for abuse and harsh punishments while forgetting the verses following, 'do not provoke your children'. The Bible promotes positive interactions and healthy relationships but is often taken out of context and twisted to support a nonexistent point.

# data[].attributes.body
“Many abused children cling to the hope that growing up will bring escape and freedom.
But the personality formed in the environment of coercive control is not well adapted to adult life. The survivor is left with fundamental problems in basic trust, autonomy, and initiative. She approaches the task of early adulthood――establishing independence and intimacy――burdened by major impairments in self-care, in cognition and in memory, in identity, and in the capacity to form stable relationships.
She is still a prisoner of her childhood; attempting to create a new life, she reencounters the trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (Child Abuse Quotes)

The mind changes when going through trauma and a child may never be the same after experiencing any sort of abuse, no matter how "minor" it may be.

# data[].attributes.body
Approximately 674,000 children were victims of maltreatment and of these: 74.9 % suffered neglect, 18.3% suffered physical abuse, and 8.6% suffered sexual abuse. (“Child Abuse and Neglect.” Children's)

# data[].attributes.headline
Anti-child abuse ad, unknown artist (Fanpop)

# data[].attributes.subject
Anti-child abuse ad, unknown artist (Fanpop)

# data[].attributes.body
A monochrome little girl pressed up against a wall with hurtful words above her, surrounding her

# data[].attributes.body
In the UK there is a helpline called the Samaritans adn the speaker, Sophie Andrews, used this helpline when she was 12 years old to help escape her father's abuse, eventually volunterring herself and being able to help other people. She later on set up a helpline to help older people with lonliness, called The Silver Line. Because one person helped and listened to her at 12, she was able to make an amazing impact.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sophie Andrews: The best way to help is often just to listen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A 24-hour helpline in the UK known as Samaritans helped Sophie Andrews become a survivor of abuse rather than a victim. Now she's paying the favor back as the founder of The Silver Line, a helpline that supports lonely and isolated older people.

# data[].attributes.body
Nadine Harris, a doctor in California, discovers that when most children are diagnosed with ADHD, they actually experienced a traumatic event that changed the way their brain works

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Childhood trauma isn’t something you just get over as you grow up. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. An impassioned plea for pediatric medicine to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.

# data[].attributes.body
"The average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950’s. We are getting more anxious every decade. Psychologists have speculated about the possible reasons for this increase in both anxiety and depression over the last fifty years." (How)

Children are becoming more and more anxious, and parents don't help. Even if they aren't necessarily abusing them, extra pressure from having to get good grades, joining extracurricular activities, socializing (and the drama often coming with it), family drama, and many other factors definitely don't relieve any stress.

# data[].attributes.headline
F451 Research Paragraph 2 - Lack of Prevention and Its Effects

# data[].attributes.subject
F451 Research Paragraph 2 - Lack of Prevention and Its Effects

# data[].attributes.body
Being a bystander and ignoring an issue is just as bad as being a part of the issue. One type of child abuse, the least suffered at home (Myths) but still very harmful, is sexual abuse. Sex can be a topic many people are uncomfortable about and will change the topic as soon as possible, and the discomfort increases when abuse is mentioned, and even more so when a child is involved.

“One, a 2000 incident when a janitor allegedly witnessed Sandusky performing oral sex on a middle school-age boy, and the other, a 2002 incident in which a graduate assistant, now a coach at the school, allegedly saw Sandusky anally raping a boy of about age 10 in the university locker room. Both men reported what they'd seen to their supervisors, and according to grand jury testimony, both were distraught — the janitor so much so that his co-workers thought he might have a heart attack. But neither man stepped in to stop the abuse in the moment, decisions that have raised criticism in the wake of the scandal”(Pappas).

It is either not talked about, or if a child brings it up, dismissed. People will give the excuse that a child has an active imagination and is making the situation up (Myths), and the topic is ignored when it can be very serious and should not be ignored. A bystander is a person who observes a situation that could be considered violent and is not directly involved but could be by speaking up, intervening, or interact some other way (What Is). Bystanders have a lot of control over the situation, and could possibly save a life, or ignore it and the pain will continue for the victim. According to an article by Dalia Adams and Kim Lehnert, being exposed to stressful situations (combat trauma and child abuse) can lead to a higher chance of suicide (Adams).

# data[].attributes.headline
F451 Research Paragraph 1 - All Shapes and Sizes

# data[].attributes.subject
F451 Research Paragraph 1 - All Shapes and Sizes

# data[].attributes.body
Abuse and neglect can come in a variety of forms, it’s not always black eyes, bruises, and ratty clothes that one typically imagines, but it can be mental and emotional too. When people think of “abuse”, they are most likely to imagine physical abuse, like hitting a child, but it’s more elaborate than that. There are 4 types of child abuse: physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, and sexual abuse or exploitation, and neglect (Types). Physical abuse is:

“...striking, kicking, burning, or biting the child, or any action that results in a physical impairment of the child.” (Definitions).

Essentially, any time a child is hurt on purpose, it’s considered physical abuse. Child emotional or psychological abuse includes rejection, isolation, terrorization, ignoring, corruption, verbally assaulting, and over-pressuring (Child Emotional).

“‘It may sound like nothing, and it often looks like nothing,” Webb writes, “But actually, [it] can have as great an impact upon a child as abuse, even though it’s not noticeable or memorable like abuse is.’” Though a child may look good physically, emotionally they are broken. The child feels as if their emotions aren’t valid and will have very low self-confidence and self-esteem as they grow older (What Happens). “Twenty-eight to 33% of women and 12 to 18% of men were victims of childhood or adolescent sexual abuse (Roland, 2002, as cited in Long, Burnett, & Thomas, 2006). Sexual abuse that does not include touch and other types of sexual abuse are reported less often, which means this number of individuals who have been sexually abused in their childhood may actually be greater (Maltz, 2002).” (Hall and Hall).

The percentages of how many people have been sexually abused are skewed because there isn’t a clear definition of what is abuse and what isn’t, and people might think, “So and so had it worse, so I must not be abused”. In an article talking about children with ADHD,

“Most parents don’t choose to traumatize their kids.  Instead, many of these parents are struggling with psychiatric disorders themselves including, not the of least of all, ADHD.” (Trauma).

Parents don’t realize how harmful they can be and how much they contribute to stress that a child with a mental disorder has. Earlier in the same article,

“My first reaction when I heard about the article was something like… here we go again with one more person jumping on the anti-ADHD bandwagon and attributing every childhood behavior problem to the direct effects of trauma and adverse child events.”(Traum).

When mental health is talked about it is often filled with information, leading to those with mental illnesses and professionals to roll their eyes at the lies being spread.

# data[].attributes.body
Ray Bradbury shows the desensitization of society through Mildred. This occurs during a conversation between Montag and his wife when he mentions that he hasn’t seen Clarisse in a while:

“‘‘Her,’ said Mildred in the dark room. ‘What about her?’ asked Montag. ‘I meant to tell you. Forgot. Forgot’ ‘Tell me now. What is it?’ ‘I think she’s gone.’ ‘Gone?’ ‘Whole family moved somewhere. But she’s gone for good. I think she’s dead.’ [...] ‘Run over by a car. Four days ago. I’m not sure. But I think she’s dead. ’ [...] ‘You’re not sure of it!’ ‘No, not sure. Pretty sure.’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ ‘Forgot’ ‘Four days ago!’ ‘I forgot all about it.’ ‘Four days ago,’ he said, quietly, lying there. They lay there in the dark room not moving, either of them. ‘Good night,’ she said” (Bradbury 44, 45).

Mildren is desensitized and easily forgets about Clarisse’s death. In our society, a child’s death, even if it isn’t your own, is very sad and would likely be on your mind for a few days. Especially since Guy told Mildred about her, so clearly she knows who Clarisse is and would recognize her. She’s desensitized to the idea of a child’s death and can casually say, “Oh yeah, she died four days ago,” with no remorse or response to Guy’s reaction. She puts her seashells back in and falls asleep, deaf to the worries of the world around her. She would rather stay ignorant and cope by bottling up and ignoring the issues of those around her. Seashells can represent blocking out the worries of the world like holding a seashell to your ear to hear the ocean or letting yourself float to wherever the waves push you. Four in Japanese considered an unlucky number because 四 (shi) is four and 死(shi) is death. They have different symbols but sound the same and is fitting for Clarisse's death to be four days ago.

“‘Aren’t you going to ask me about last night?’ he said. ‘What about it?’ ‘We burned a thousand books. We burned a woman.’ ‘Well?’ (Bradbury 47)

Death is such a normal part of their society that when Guy tells his wife that he killed someone, her only response is “Well?”. This could be because his job is sometimes expected to include the loss of a life, but in a normal healthy relationship, Mildred would likely try to comfort Montag instead of just shrugging it off.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

# data[].attributes.body
Mikala Horton
Mrs. Jenkins
English 10-7
April 17, 2019

# data[].attributes.body
In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury briefly touches on child abuse and neglect, which can have severe negative effects on a child’s mental health. He was accurate in his predictions of society’s desensitization and dismissiveness of neglect and abuse, and how society’s positive interactions, even the most insignificant, can make a huge impact on a child’s life.