As a result of changes in conditions, Montag’s dynamic character unfurls as he uncovers his concealed state of humanity, empowering him to exhibit human emotions through selflessness and empathy. As Montag’s fraud cover of statistification is diminished, exposing his state of humanity, he begins to loathe the fabricated essence established by authority, impacting him to address reality. In the midst of his discussion with his wife Mildred about their lifestyle, Montag bitterly stated, “Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Maybe the books can get us half way out of the cave. They might just stop us making the same damn insane mistakes” (70). As appeared in the statement, Montag’s internal conflict concluded to his dormant side of aching power and knowledge, as he finally comprends the necessity of …show more content…
Subsequently, he resorts to Mildred’s friends amid their confabulation. As Montag intensely stated hearing his wife’s companions exploitative style of propensities, “ go home and think of your first husband divorced and your second husband killed in a jet…go home and think how it all happened and what you did you ever do to stop it” (98). Montag’s avocation towards his wife’s companions displays his empathy towards them, as he feels responsible for the torment they feel and how it is his fault he is not facing the profound quality of society. His guiltiness is expressed with his feet as he has an inclination that he is transforming into the guile government and Captain Beatty, envisioning that mistakes cannot be profited. Consequently, Montag endeavors to restore his humanness by awakening his heart and mind to thoughts and feelings, knowing that he must gain individuality. He tells Faber reluctantly, “ I don’t want to change sides and just told be told what to do”
Montag is realizing wrong his world really is. He wants to change it too. He says “ Im going to do something, I dont know what yet but im going t do something big.” He doesnt know what to do yet because at this point he hasnt figured out the “missing peice”. Montag says “ I dont know. we have everything we need to be happy, but we arent happy. Something is missing.” then he starts to understand that books are the key to knowladge and knowledge is what they need. he says “There must be something in books that we cant imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there, you dont stay for nothing.” And this is the turning point of the book because now montag is ready to take
“I saw the damndest snake in the world the other night… you want to see that snake? It’s at Emergency Hospital where they filed the report on all the junk the snake got out of you!... would you like to go to that house that burnt last night? And rake the ashes for the bones of the woman who set fire to her own house! What about Clarisse McClellan, where do we look for her? The morgue!” (Bradbury, 69). All these tragedies serve to anger Montag, to motivate him to break through the surgery, rhinestone cage of his previously worldly
Montag is different than others around him. McGiveron said “An insanity of mindlessness” (Mcgiveron 1). This is the world Montag lives in. He is not alike his peers at all. “Montag has a conscience and a curiosity” (McGiveron 1). This shows he has a special set of traits that is rare in this society. Montag moves past things much better than those around him. An example of this is “even when Montag finally kills the taunting beatty he displaces him syntactically from the center of the action.” (McGiveron 2). Here we see the relentlessness of Montag. To include Montag is special compared to the rest of his dystopian
Chuck Palahniuk once said “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” When Clarisse asked Montag if he was happy, he thought, and thought about it, until finally, he found out he really wasn’t happy. Guy Montag risked his family, his career, and his life, just to hold banished readings within his home. He went against society to do what he thought was right, even if that meant punishment or death. Montag was a hero because he tried to bring back freedom and independent thought, show off author’s greatest works, and even though he rebelled, and killed a man, he did it with good intentions to help the rest of society.
Everyone has the ability to look at where the world is today and picture what the future might hold. That’s exactly what Huxley, Orwell and Bradbury did in their futuristic novels, though exaggerating quite a bit. In Huxley’s novel Brave New World, he depicts a society where people are decanted from bottles instead of being born from mothers. George Orwell gives us a glimpse at a world where everything is regulated, even sex, in his novel 1984. Bradbury foresaw the future in the most accurate way in his novel Fahrenheit 451; writing about a future without literature to guard the people from negative feelings, just as our college campuses in America are doing by adding trigger warnings to books with possible offensive content.
Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance to Today Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence of the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today, which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books. Patai explains that Bradbury saw that people would soon be controlled by the television and saw it as the creators chance to “replace lived experience” (Patai 2).
Within the many layers of Montag lay several opposite sides. For example, Montag is a fireman who burns books for a living but at home, spends time reading novels, poetry, and other written material. Although Montag could be called a hypocrite, he does not enjoy both the reading and the burning at the same time; he goes through a change that causes him to love books. Humans have the power to change and grow from one extreme to another, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In addition, when Mildred is with Montag, Montag does not have feelings for her but thinks of her as she is killed by the bombs. He possesses both the knowledge that Mildred does not love him and the heart that truly cares, but he knows not how to deal with this. His feelings are oppressed; it takes a major event (the bomb) to jolt them from hibernation.
“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
This is shown throughout the book and an example of this is shown when he starts to think about his own life and happiness. It shows that Montag really does care about his life and feelings unlike the average citizen in that society who are just slowly losing their sense of self and becoming like everyone else. Montag also begins to collect books and hide them in his vent. Despite the fact that his house can be burned down for holding these books, he continues to collect them so he can try to answer the questions he still
Montag constantly changes his thoughts about his environment and the society in which he is living. At the beginning of the book, Montag is a fireman, and his job is to burn books. He loves his job and he thinks he is doing the right thing: “It was a special pleasure to see things eaten”(Bradbury 4). Later in the book he meets Clarisse a girl who changes Montag’s point of view and opinion of some aspects of his life by asking the question: “are you happy?...” (Bradbury 8).
When Montag was holding the flame thrower, Beatty taunted him and when Montag turned on him, he did not fight back. His attitude towards books had gone back and forth and it is troubling to not know how he stood. I learned that we cannot allow society to control our minds. A society’s thought can’t be allowed to be controlled. If this happens, we lose our sense of individuality.
Are you really happy? Or are you sad about something? Sad about life or money, or your job? Any of these things you can be sad of. Most likely you feel discontentment a few times a day and you still call yourself happy. These are the questions that Guy Montag asks himself in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book people are thinking they are happy with their lives. This is only because life is going so fast that they think they are but really there is things to be sad about. Montag has finally met Clarisse, the one person in his society that stops to smell the roses still. She is the one that gets him thinking about how his life really is sad and he was just moving too fast to see it. He realizes that he is sad about pretty much everything in his life and that the government tries to trick the people by listening to the parlor and the seashells. This is just to distract people from actual emotions. People are always in a hurry. They have 200 foot billboards for people driving because they are driving so fast that they need more time to see the advertisement. Now I am going to show you who are happy and not happy in the book and how our society today is also unhappy.
...ges his thinking about her and about his whole society. Montag is revealed as being humane, unlike the rest of society, however is still restricted on talking because of the strict conditions made.
He realizes that he is limited to his knowledge and freedom by his government and he doesn’t want that for himself anymore. Bradbury symbolizes this when Montag says to Mildred, “ ‘There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stand in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.’ ” (48). During this quote Montag begins to question his society, and why he burns books. He becomes eager to know why they have certain rules and hopes to find the answers in books. Montag’s curiosity also is established when he says, “ ‘I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much? I’ve heard rumors about hate, too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don’t that’s sure. Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. The just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! I don’t hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it. God, Millie, don’t you see? An hour a day, two hours, with these books and maybe…’” (70). This displays that Montag is starting to open his eyes to the truth about the world around him. Montag is starting to question authority and the “true facts” that his government gives his society. Montag is becoming empowered and beginning to think for
You take advantage of your life every day. Have you ever wondered why? You never really think about how much independence you have and how some of us treat books like they’re useless. What you don’t realize is that both of those things are the reason that we live in such a free society. If we didn’t have books and independence, we would treat death and many other important things as if it were no big deal. That is the whole point of Ray Bradbury writing this book.