Fahrenheit 451: Montag and Society

Many people talk about how the world is slowly caving in as people are desensitized emotionally. Opposers suggest that it is technology’s fault for sucking a person’s mind into oblivion twenty four hours a day. However, it is the people themselves who are going to bring about their own destruction. In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the actions of the public perfectly exemplifies a worst-case scenario of the future coming to mayhem. In this world, books not accepted by the law are burned by “firefighters” so that everyone is taught the same information. Nobody strays from the “truth”, and this way, everyone is treated equally. There is no nerd and there is no bully. The public is encouraged to listen to live streams of people talking in headphone devices called seashells. Yet for one man in particular, Guy Montag, he struggled between fitting in with the public or pursuing an “itch” he has always had. These feelings started when he had a short talk with his neighbor, Clarisse McClellan. In school, Clarisse has always been seen as an outcast, yet by Montag, her strange facts of realization intrigued him. She knew curious information that he did not, and this made him angry. It was not until she mysteriously disappeared that he really started to understand the depth to her words. She knew more about life, and he was determined to find the same information in the forbidden books. Ironically, Montag was a firefighter, but he

(STEWE-1) Montag comes to a conclusion that what he does and his own job are wrong,”Montag only said, We never burned right, and then he was a shrieking blaze”(113). This symbolizes that Montag knows they never used fire the right way, they used it to burn when it should be used for something else. Causing Montag to react by killing Beatty. (STEWE-2) While Montag is trying to escape his society. “Watch for a man running… watch for the running man… watch for a man alone on foot, … watch. Yes, he thought where am I running”(118). While running away Montag commits a crime towards the society by putting a book in a fireman’s house and calling in the alarm, just like him and Faber had set up. “And now since you’re a fireman’s wife, it’s your house and your turn, He hid the books in the kitchen and moved from the house again to the alley”(123). Montag has started to commit crimes against the state and run away. (SIP-B) Montag fully rebels against his society and escapes it. (STEWE-1) Furthermore while on the run Montag drops in on Faber to explain to him what is going on, Faber suggests to Montag to go to the river. “One of the rare few times he discovered that somewhere behind behind the seven veils of unreality, beyond the walls of parlors and beyond the tin most of the city”(135). Montag now realizes there is more to everything beyond the robotic

Montag, as the main protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, is a highly dynamic character.His new found want to learn, understand the world and fix the issues, he himself was blind to for years, makes him a relatable characterization for human curiosity. His society views “free thought” as a menace to the collective good despite seeing the signs that the entire system is failing. Mass suicides, endorphine powered joy rides, and murder have replaced human thought and compassion. His ability to break against the grain gifts him with both disadvantages and advantages as he faces new obstacles throughout the novel.

Montag's attempts to rectify the damage his distorted society has cast upon humanity parallels with the prisoner’s return to the cave, where his newfound beliefs are rejected out of fear. Despite Montag's intentions, the public only attacks him, berates him and labels him a criminal for acting out and rebelling against the society’s wishes. Montag’s attempts to “sear all their faces and wake them up” only result in failure (Bradbury 128), as after all, the public is too afraid. Any threat to the fragile peace the society holds is automatically fought against. The members themselves protect the status quo by isolating outsiders who think differently, as Clarisse explains to Montag, “The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten

Montag job is to burn books and by burning these knowledgeable books, he takes away knowledge from the society therefore ignoring all the knowledge that can be given to the society. Montag's first sense of knowledge came from McClellan when she asked, "Do you ever read the books that you burn?" When Montag got home he thought about the question. Montag ignored the fact of what could be in books, he was just doing his job until he realized that books have power. Montag finally realized when he burned a library with a woman inside protecting her books. For the first time Montag actually thought of what he was doing. Montag had a curiosity of why the woman would stay in a burning library to protect her books. This is what sparked Montag to quit his job as a firefighter.

Montag is a really conscientious and intelligent man. Montag is conscientious because,one day when the alarm goes off, Montag and his other co-workers rush to a big house with a woman that refuses to abandon her books, and they burned her alive. Guy comprehend that books are important and that burning books may be wrong."You weren't there, you didn't see," he said. "There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing." (Bradbury, p.51) He is intelligent enough to question the criteria of his job, his interest for his wife and if his society is leaving in a camouflage of happiness.After he meets Clarisse, his seventeen-year-old neighbor and he realize her independent thinking, he knew he had to do the right action. Clarisse is the person that makes Montag doubt if he is happy. As he explains in one of the paragraph “ He was not

Montag does not know if he should worry when all the firemen do is protect happiness. I think that he should worry, firstly because the firemen burn books and say that they are evil without having read them and seen what is in them. Secondly, they burn peoples homes down and the people become homeless. Thirdly, the firemen are told the books are evil because they tell lies, even though that is not true the firemen never find this out because they are not allowed to read the books. That’s why I think Montag should worry.

Montag is living an average, happy life, going to work and coming home to his wife, but when he meets Clarisse, he had his eyes opened up about his society. Near the beginning of the story, Montag has enjoyment while doing his job, “While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame” (2). Inside these quotes, it represents how happy Guy Montag is. Nothing is bothering him and he is enjoying going to work every day and burning books. Although, when Montag meets a young girl named Clarisse, she gives Guy a different perspective on his happiness as he questions himself, “Of course I’m happy. What does she think? I’m not?” (8) Accordingly, Clarisse has given Montag a new perspective and now he is curious and wants to research deeper in the dystopia and his

At the start of the novel, Montag valued his job and rules. As a fireman, he burns houses with books in them to ensure “happiness” in society. In school, citizens are educated about TV shows versus traditional subjects like math. They live their lives in an age of constant streaming with no time to your own thinking. This is because with thinking comes thoughts, and with thoughts comes discontent. The entire country is taught to not think.. In the beginning, Montag takes great pride in being a fireman, he thinks it is an honor to be the keeper

Throughout the first part of the story, Montag is hopeless; Clarisse turns his hopelessness into an idea for change. Montag’s storyline revolves around his life as a book-burner and the sorrow he feels for destroying the change his society needs. Montag begins, “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I’ve used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books” (55).

Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to burn the books that are illegally kept in the society of Fahrenheit 451. At first, he loves his job, and he is just like all the other people in his society. He finds difference weird and strange, and he rejects the idea of being unique. When he firsts meets his neighbor, Clarisse, he finds her strange and is sceptical in his conversation with her. However, over time, Clarisse’s words and ideas that are untraditional to Montag’s society slowly change him and his way of thinking. He is changed by other events that take place after meeting Clarisse, like when his wife Millicent is overdosed with sleeping pills. Montag sees how unfeeling and uncaring the paramedics are, and he feels turmoil on the

In Montag’s society, the government is manipulative of its citizens. At first, it seems Montag wants to burn books, but later he questions himself. After he sees a woman willing to burn with her book, it makes him sick. Beatty visits him that inspire him to be a better man. “Burn the book.

He had been a reliable, and for the most part trustworthy, fireman throughout his career, happy with his job while also ignorant of it. However, throughout his career it seems that he often that felt society misled him, as shown through his underhand stealing of books he had been obligated to burn. Later, after meeting Clarisse, he realized that there had to be “‘something in books’” to compel a woman to stay inside her burning house (Bradbury 48). This radical thought, coupled with the fact that he had once again unconsciously stolen a book from the woman’s house, indicates that his innermost thoughts had begun fighting the basic principles he had grown up on. His rebellious nature questioned the morality of his book burning and overtook his loyalty to the firemen. The reality Clarisse had shown Montag about his unfulfilling life caused his heart to fight back against the oppressive society that he was employed to

As he grows as a character, he becomes more open to ideas. He becomes influenced by recollections from his childhood that remind him of a different time, and this exemplifies that things could be different. These memories are crucial in his transformation. A key facet of governmental control in Montag's society is an absence of books, which results in a dampening of progressive thought and curiosity.

In the book “Fahrenheit 451” we are introduced to our narrator Guy Montag, a firefighter. But, Guy is not like the firefighters of todays expectations. Instead of putting out fires, they would start them by burning books which were outlawed by the government. After talking to a neighbor, he starts to question his work. He sees how his life really is, with a wife who does not love him and a society that is caught up in technology and war. People were killing each other everyday but no one seemed to care.