Beatty Vs Montag

After Montag is finished burning the house down, Beatty arrests Montag. When Beatty begins to rebuke Montag, Montag turns on his superior and with the flamethrower, proceeds to burn Beatty to ashes.

In the beginning of the third part, Montag and Captain Beatty stand outside his front lawn, staring at Montag’s home inevitably to be burned. Montag to ignites it himself and they both watch as the house crashes to the ground in flames. Faber cries frantically into Montag’s ear to escape, but he is fearful of the Mechanical Hound roaming nearby. While Montag is talking to Faber, Beatty discovers the communication device and steals it. Lost without his mentor, Montag’s anger grows as Beatty taunts him. In one final straw, he turns his igniter upon Beatty and attacks the other firemen. He turns to escape but the Hound is already there and stuns him with one of its needles. Montag is now injured and realizes that his only chance of survival is to return to Faber. Before he leaves, he goes into his backyard to rescue his books.

In this passage in which a conflict between Beatty and Montag results in Beatty’s death, Ray Bradbury uses imagery, dialogue and pace to develop both characters. Bradbury develops Montag as a character who finds a new appreciation for the deeper meanings within the forbidden books of his society. Beatty, on the other hand, is developed as a character who is closed minded and considered the norm of his society.

Beatty uses his knowledge to attack Montag after the fireman has made the decision to join the radicals and to oppose the burning of books. Montag returns to the fire station in order to surrender a book, creating the illusion of conforming to Beatty’s expectations. Before Montag has an opportunity to speak Beatty begins to confound him with contradictory statements from

Although Beatty decides to reject what he learned when given the opportunity to read books, Beatty is unhappy with his life as a fireman and persuades Montag to kill him by using pathos as shown through his words and actions. Firstly, Beatty orders Montag to burn Montag’s own house, creating anger and sadness within Montag. Messing with Montag’s emotions makes it a pathos appeal. This action alone does not make Montag kill Beatty, but it does push to that goal. In addition, Beatty continues to irritate Montag by insulting him, saying “It was the act of a silly, damn snob” (Bradbury 118). Even though Montag was acting like a snob, or a stuck-up individual, when he read the “Dover Beach” poem to Mildred and her friends, Beatty calling Montag

Faber says, “So now you see why books are hated and feared?They show the pores in the face of life”(79). Montag decides to work with Faber and become a revolutionary even though it may be risky. Faber decides to give Montag an earpiece so that he can hear what is going on in Montag’s life and they can communicate secretly. Montag takes the earpiece and goes home. When home he finds Mildred and her friends watching the television. To Montag this seems like a good time to bring out all the books in his home. Montag was trying to be a revolutionary and change Mildred and her friends into believing that books were actually fine but it backfired on him. When he decides to read a poem to the girls he gets a negative response. One of the friends, Mrs.Phelps begins to cry, the other friend Mrs.Bowles says, “I’ve always said, poetry tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings”(97). Their whole society was avoiding books because they provoke real and raw emotions that they think they are not able to handle, but they could be if they tried. Montag changed his outlook and was trying to help others, but their minds were not developed enough to

Montag’s wife, Mildred tried to kill herself by taking “sleeping tablets which had been filled with thirty capsules and..now lay uncapped and empty” (10). The spouses relationship is drastically in trouble, considering Mildred’s attempt to take her own life, willing to leave Montag alone in the world. Mildred does not care about anything but watching television, not paying much attention to her own husband besides asking for things and now requesting for him to get their “fourth wall torn out and a fourth t.v wall put in” only leading to more distance between the two (18). She would rather spend her time alone, only thinking to please herself, rather than being with Montag, this lack of communication is leading is them nowhere but down. One of the few times the couple times actually communicates, Montag asks Mildred “when did we meet and where” but neither of them

He knows she called about his books. Captain Beatty then tells Montag again to burn all of his books, but instead he burns all of Mildred’s things. He loves the desire of burning and destroying all of her things. Captain Beatty tells Montag that he is to be arrested afterwards. All of the firemen watch as Montag’s house burns. Captain Beatty and Montag start to argue about books and their importance again. They start a physical fight. The fight escalates to Montag pointing a flame thrower at Captain Beatty. Captain Beatty goes on to taunt Montag, so Montag decides to burn Captain Beatty

Montag sees Mildred walk out of the house, get into a cab and leave. Beatty then tells

He also meets Clarisse right before that, which introduces him to the fact that he is not happy and points out how flawed his society is. This causes him to have a sort of identity crisis which brings in the man vs self conflict. Another man vs society problem that goes with the main conflict occurs at the same time. During the book, especially after meeting Clarisse, Montag develops a pronounced hatred of technology. This is shown in Montag’s metaphors applying to technology throughout the book. Most commonly, he refers to technology as undesirable animals/objects. For example, when Mildred is getting her stomach pumped by “the black cobra”(12) and Montag refers to Faber’s two-way radio as a “green bullet”(112) and a “gnat tickling his ear"(88). Also when he burns his house, he makes it a priority to burn his wife’s three TV-walls. Finally, there is a man vs man conflict between Montag and Beatty. Once Montag is “sick” after the burning of the old woman’s house and Montag’s stealing of the Bible from her house, this reveals later Montag’s secret stash of books. But Montag plainly gives away to Beatty that he took a book

Later Captain Beatty, Montag’s captain, stops by Montag’s house to talk to him. While Beatty is there Montag just lies in bed trying to conceal one of the books he took from the house

He finds an ex-professor named Faber, whom he met in the park one day. Faber is reluctant, but finally agrees to aid Montag against the firemen. Faber provides Montag with a two-way radio earpiece. That evening Montag loses his temper and breaks out by reading some banned poetry aloud to his wife’s friends. Which wasn’t such a bright decision. That night at the firehouse, Beatty pokes at Montag by quoting contradictory passages from the same books. Which he’s trying to prove that all literature is confusing and problematic. Then he takes Guy to a fire alarm. Which is very astonishing because it’s at Guy’s

He noticed Montag tilt his head to the side, as if he was listening to someone else talk. Beatty swung his hand into the side of Montag’s face, the force of the hit causing them both to stumble backwards. A small green object flew out his ear, and Beatty gently picked it up of the ground and held it up to his ear. He smirked as Montag shouted in protest. A quick glance at Montag’s fingers revealed that he had unlocked the safety on the flamethrower.

The next day. Montag had to go burn some books. So he went with his friends who were firemen too. They went to an old woman’s house to burn her books. The old woman tries to prevent them burn her books. Montag stole a book ,when his friends and the old woman were arguing about the books. He put the under his armpit. They were a lot of books. So they had to burn the house too. The firemen tried to get the old woman out. She refused to go out the house. She wanted to stay. Montag tried to get her out. The old woman said go on I want to stay with my books. So Montag and the firemen lit the house on fire. The burned the old woman with her house. After that Montag told Beatty his boss that they burned an old woman. Beatty could care less. Right

During the talk between Montag and Beatty, Beatty boldly declares that they are the true heroes of their society: “We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought” (59). As a figure of authority in their society, he could be manipulating Montag with this speech, but he refers to the peacemakers as “‘we,’” which shows that he truly believes what he’s saying. Together, the firemen “‘stand against’” those whose views contradict that of which they were told. He refers to these people as a “‘small tide;’” a very minute group, but still has the power to pull people from ignorance into knowledge.