"Does the white clown love you"(Bradbury 77).
Mildred desperately dances around answering this question, because she does not know the answer. Mildred refers to the parlor walls as her family, she listens to them constantly, she watches them, she lives by them, yet who are they to her? It is not that she does not want to answer the question, she simply does not know the answer. If you never loved, or were loved, how can you know if something loves you? Mildred does not have the ability to know love, since it is nowhere in her life. Everything about her life is predetermined, programmed into her, nothing she does of feels is her own will. She can say the word love, but she does not know its meaning. The white clown cannot love her, but can she even love the white clown?
"Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world?"(Bradbury 73).
This is modern day America. If any single statement can consolidate our world views and sum up our lack of concern in most foreign affairs, this quote can. It is not that we as a country do not care about the rest of the world, but why think of things thousands of miles away when you have things to do? Well, while we sit home with our TV's and Ipod's the rest of the is going, moving, changing. But how will this affect us? The world starves while we see McDonald's on every corner. The world is in school while we are spending July on the beach. The world does not seem to like us, but we do not seem to mind. It is not that we want to be this way, we just have forgotten how not to be this way. It is not that we decided one day to be this way, it just progressively happened. It is not that we all are entirely this way, it is that it is our appearance. And in a world like ours, that is all that seems to matter.
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