Fahrenheit 451 Clarisse McClellan
by Ray Bradbury

Clarisse McClellan is Montag's seventeen-year-old neighbor, who befriends him early in the novel. Though she presents herself as "crazy", she is one of the sanest characters in the book. Clarisse comes from a freethinking family, is a rebel, and is associated consistently with nature imagery. She is also the catalyst for Montag's change of thinking. Clarisse is killed early in the work—hit by a speeding car piloted by children—but that does not diminish her significance to the story. If not for her, Montag might have kept on impulsively stealing books without ever giving thought to why he was doing so. Clarisse, and people like her, are both feared and loathed by Captain Beatty.