Imagine a world where books are banned from society, and firemen start fires, instead of put them out. Families are devoid of love, violence is rampant on the streets of the city, planes from warring countries constantly drone overhead, and suicide is a regular occurrence. This is the picture that Ray Bradbury paints in his dystopian novel "Fahrenheit 451." The story itself is a depiction of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, highlighting the effect of education and the lack of it on human nature. Throughout the story, Bradbury uses his characters as metaphorical mirrors in order to emphasize the importance of self-examination as a way to escape the cave. The allegory begins with those who are trapped in the cave. Beginning from childhood, these people have lived their entire lives chained to the cave facing forward, “seeing nothing other than the shadows cast by the fire behind them” (Plato 515a). These shadows become the closest thing to reality that these prisoners will ever know. In Bradbury’s society, all of the city’s citizens are trapped in the cave. They are so steeped within the culture that they know nothing apart from “thimble radios tamped tight” to their ears and televisions that span entire walls. (Bradbury 12). Montag’s wife, Millie, is one of the most dominant prisoners within Fahrenheit 451. She functions as a mirror to the state of society. However, she is “such a part of Guy’s routine that he cannot seem to see what she reflects” (McGiveron 2). Millie is so obsessed with the fictional “family” that appears on her three-wall television that they become her reality, much like the shadows on the cave wall (Bradbury 77). To her, the family on the television is real; they are “immediate” and have “dimension” (Bradbury 79). Millie embodies the superficiality and emptiness of the novel’s society and cannot escape it. Her frivolous activities, such as driving out in the country “feel[ing] wonderful” and drowning out the world with her audio-seashells, have become her chains, imprisoning her in the cave forever (Bradbury 64). She reflects the entire culture in her lack of self-examination. She is so devoid of introspection that she can’t