Jason Cronje Mr. Williams HSE 3, Per 3 02/13/2014 The Blaze in the Firemen’s Eyes Fire is a simple human necessity that is capable of sustaining life, but if misused can easily destroy it. Guy Montag a firemen destine to burn books, meets a young girl named Clarisse who changes his view on everything. His character slowly starts to change as he realizes books are in fact pieces of art, doomed to the flames. Montag digs deeper and deeper, until eventually it may tear the society wide apart. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the main character Montag’s view point of fire progresses from a weapon capable of destroying anything, eventually the fire disinfects Montags head, and in the end causes him to changes completely. At the beginning of our story, Bradbury shows us Montags initial viewpoint of fire. He feels as if it is a powerful substance that is being used to destroy these books filled with “lies”. When the novel begins Montags viewpoint of fire is clearly described, “It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.” (Bradbury 3) Montag does not view fire for what it really is, but instead sees its sole purpose only for destroying books. It clearly shows us that Montag almost sounds like he is enjoying burning the books. He feels as if it is a pleasure to watch the pages curl, the words turn to a pile of dust. Shortly after Montag is described to conducting an orchestra of fire, “…the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.” (Bradbury 3) Once again we can still see Montag only seeing the destructive properties of fire. Still seeming to be enj... ... middle of paper ... ...character Montag it is a weapon in the beginning, while deep in his thoughts it actually cleanses his mind completely, and he emerges as a new person. At the start of our story Montag is a hard-working firemen, who doesn’t really think anything to be out of the ordinary. He is comfortable with what he is doing and feels as if fire is his weapon. Upon meeting Clarisse he slowly starts to change into a new person. Stealing books and actually starting to think of the clear issues in this society, was what changed Montag into a new person. At the end of the book, we see Montag shift into his new “body.” He has become a changed man, no longer a firemen, but an outlaw to the state. Bradbury has clearly shown us that fire can be one thing in the eyes of one man and something else to another. We see how small things can push someone so far, that they can destroy everything.
Montag, a fireman who ignites books into glowing embers that fall into ashes as black as night. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury expresses a message in which society has opened their doors to mass devastation. Guy Montag, a “fireman”, burns houses that have anything to do with books instead putting fires out like the job of a real firemen. In Montag’s society, books are considered taboo, and owning books can lead to dire consequences. Ray Bradbury portrays a society in which humans have suffered a loss of self, humanity, and a powerful control from the government resulting in a fraudulent society.
The first line of the book reads, “It was a pleasure to burn” continued with, “It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (1). Clearly Montag enjoys his work and seems to have no remorse for what he is doing and the damage he is causing by burning the book.
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by author Ray Bradbury we are taken into a place of the future where books have become outlawed, technology is at its prime, life is fast, and human interaction is scarce. The novel is seen through the eyes of middle aged man Guy Montag. A firefighter, Ray Bradbury portrays the common firefighter as a personal who creates the fire rather than extinguishing them in order to accomplish the complete annihilation of books. Throughout the book we get to understand that Montag is a fire hungry man that takes pleasure in the destruction of books. It’s not until interacting with three individuals that open Montag’s eyes helping him realize the errors of his ways. Leading Montag to change his opinion about books, and more over to a new direction in life with a mission to preserve and bring back the life once sought out in books. These three individual characters Clarisse McClellan, Faber, and Granger transformed Montag through the methods of questioning, revealing, and teaching.
Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451, is based in a futuristic time where technology rules our everyday lives and books are viewed as a bad thing because it brews free thought. Although today’s technological advances haven’t caught up with Bradbury’s F451, there is a very real danger that society might end up relying on technology at the price of intellectual development. Fahrenheit 451 is based in a futuristic time period and takes place in a large American City on the Eastern Coast. The futuristic world in which Bradbury describes is chilling, a future where all known books are burned by so called "firemen." Our main character in Fahrenheit 451 is a fireman known as Guy Montag, he has the visual characteristics of the average fireman, he is tall and dark-haired, but there is one thing which separates him from the rest of his colleagues. He secretly loves books.
Firstly, fire is shown to provide as a symbol of warmth. This is shown at the end of the book when Montag meets the group of men on the train tracks. Towards the end of the book, you can see how Montag’s view of fire has changed. “It was not burning. It was warming.” (pg. 145) At the beginning of the book, Montag sees fire as a means of destruction and control.
The book “Fahrenheit 451,” by Ray Bradbury, is about a man, Guy Montag, who has a job burning books. When he realizes how twisted the world he lives in is, he tries to change it, although he doesn’t really succeed. In the novel, the author uses the metaphor of fire to make the narrative more interesting. When the author uses a fire metaphor, it often seems very exciting and dramatic. Additionally, they are used to show emotion. The metaphors also make the novel feel more violent.
There are many dualisms in the outside world of Fahrenheit 451. For example, Montag receives contrasting lectures from Faber and Beatty on what to do with the books and how to be. Beatty and Faber are like black and white: total opposites no matter how you look at it. This "flip-side of a coin" clearly compares the book burner to the book reader, the hatred to the love, and it also gives the reader the opportunity to "choose" their side. In addition, the fire is used to burn houses and books, to destroy possessions; it also is used by the outcast men to cook their meal, warm themselves, and provide light for them. The fire has, in itself, two conflicting sides which includes destruction and preservation. The fire gives Montag as well as the reader the understanding that one thing can have both good qualities and bad qualities at the same time, and that many powers can be spoiled if used for negative intentions.
“Behind his mask of conformity, Montag gradually undergoes a change of values. Montag realized his life had been meaningless without books” (Liukkonen). In the beginning of the novel, Montag said, “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 3). For most of his life, Montag conformed just like the other members of society. He set things on fire because it was his job and did not question whether or not it was the right thing to do. Throughout the story, however, he grew to find and voice his own opinions and resisted the conformity that his society stressed. When Montag had to decide whether or not to burn Beatty to death, he proved himself by not giving in to what was expected. He killed the captain of the police department, which was an entirely defiant act (Bradbury
One of the main reasons that Montag changed so drastically over the course of the book was his curiosity. Montag spent a lot of time thinking about his job and started questioning everything he was doing. He starts wondering why books need to be burned and why things are the way that they are. Montag takes up a special interest in book and why things are this way. “Was-was it always like this? The firehouse, our work?” Montag asks Beatty showing his curiosity. Montag’s curiosity is what drives him to find out everything he can about books, society and the way that things used to be. It is only natural for him to begin to question everything especially because his job involves burning hundreds of books a day yet he was never told why these books need to burned. Imagine destroying an object everyday, and being told how important your job is. Naturally you would want to know why you are destroying these objects. This is what happened to Montag and Beatty tried to explain it to him and tells him he shouldn’t be too curious about it “A natural error, curiosity alone,” Beatty also asks Montag “Listen to me, Montag. Once to each fireman, at least once in his career, he just itches to know what these books are all about. He just aches to know. Isn't that so?” Curiosity is a very natural emotion and even Beatty, who tries to explain things to Montag and discourages books, even admits to looking a few books but says “I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing!” I believe that this would make Montag even more curious.
Guy Montag is a fireman who is greatly influenced in Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451. The job of a fireman in this futuristic society is to burn down houses with books in them. Montag has always enjoyed his job, that is until Clarisse McClellan comes along. Clarisse is seventeen and crazy. At least, this is what her uncle, whom she gets many of her ideas about the world from, describes her as. Clarisse and Montag befriend each other quickly, and Clarisse's impact on Montag is enormous. Clarisse comes into Montag's life, and immediately begins to question his relationship with his wife, his career, and his happiness. Also, Clarisse shows Montag how to appreciate the simple things in life. She teaches him to care about other people and their feelings. By the end of the novel, we can see that Montag is forever changed by Clarisse.
Fire is one of the primary symbols in Fahrenheit 451, as it represents destruction of ideas. People do not like books, they want to be happy, and not have to think.People in Montag's society are ignorant about the content of books and therefore casually burn them. However, Montag comes to the realization that books could leading to destruction. Montag expresses to Mildred “ And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was
The first role that fire plays in Fahrenheit 451 is apparent from the very beginning of Bradbury's novel. "IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN. It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed" (3). In these first two sentences, Bradbury creates a sense of curiosity and irony because in the story, change is something controlled and unwanted by the government and society, so it is very unlikely that anything in Guy Montag's society could be changed. The burning described at this point represents the constructive energy that later leads to catastrophe. A clear picture of firemen is first seen when the narrator says, "With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black" (3). Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which books burn and is symbolically written on the firemen’s helmets, tanks, and in the firestation.
Fire is also referenced throughout the book as a symbol of destruction, connecting to the theme of change, but when preventing change. When one thinks of fire, they think of destruction that is the meaning conveyed from the man-made fire in the book. The fire in the society is used to burn books but on another level, it is linked to the destructive ways of the society. When looking at the women in his society, Montag sees “these women twisting in their chairs under his gaze, lighting cigarettes, blowing smoke, touching their sun-fired hair and examining their blazing fingernails as if they had caught fire from his look. Their faces grew haunted with silence” (Bradbury 92). The fire represents how the ways of the society are killing its citizens,
At the beginning of the novel, Montag considers it a pleasure to burn due to the power it gave him. For Montag, burning was the only thing he knew, and to him the only way of life. Getting to be apart of the wonderful experience of helping your government made Montag feel important, being able to help out. It also let him have control over the fire, which all means for him burning is a good thing.
At the beginning of the book Fahrenheit 451, Montag is a loyal citizen and firemen, who has rarely questioned the beliefs of society. He sees the world as any ordinary citizen (in this society) would, and is perfectly content with seeing flames eat the words and thoughts of a person. Montag would never question society as he “grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame” (Bradbury 3). This means that he did not really feel the emotions that he should have felt, and was blinded by society. He felt he was doing good for society, even though he had no evidence except for the book the firemen read from to learn about their profession. The quote “Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin. Rule 1. Answer the alarm swiftly. 2. Start the fire swiftly. 3. Burn everything. 4. Report back to firehouse immediately. 5. Stand alert for other alarms” (Bradbury 34-35) gives examples of how ignorant Montag was. He thought that because it was written in a book and because everyone else believed it, he also should believe it. Montag was the perfect citizen in his perfect society, but h...