Fahrenheit 451 Dehumanization Quotes

One thing that is crucial to understanding the main character, Guy Montag, is that he doesn’t wish pain on those who don't deserve it. In this passage where Montag is talking about his wife he says that he won’t feel sad if she dies, but he still does not want her to die in the bombing. Even though she was an awful wife who put Guy through hell, he does not want her to be in pain. The fact that he was hurting a woman who had never done anything wrong but own a book is the turning point for Montag’s change of opinions about books. If this woman had not felt strongly enough about her books to die with them, then Montag wouldn’t have believed that they had valuable information in them.Without this quality, Montag would not have killed Beatty, and he would have died in the bombing. In summary, Guy Montag would not hurt anyone who he didn’t think deserved it. Because of this quality he is alive today.

Guy Montag, a local ‘firemen’ lives in a despairing dreary world where instead of firemen extinguishing fires they create them, they burn and banish books. They believe that books are a sin and trouble to society. Although Montag is one of the main sources of the books being burned he meets a bright young girl that changes his ways of thinking and

Guy Montag’s character starts off as a representation of a satanic figure living in a destructive society where he burns books for a living. He explained how, “it was a pleasure to burn” (Bradbury, 1) because he belongs to a society that views the elimination of books as a sort of purification or cleansing. Ultimately, the fear of knowledge and ignorant view of the world around this society, leads them to their own death. Keeping books out of the hands of the general population, allows people to follow the norm and to be happy. When meeting Clarisse, Montag begins to realize that he has been living a lie and that he and others are blinded by the lies and live very unhappy lifestyles, which consist of war and misery. Montag states how he “wore his happiness like a mask” (Bradbury, 9) and realizes that he too “was not happy”(Bradbury, 9). Montag lives during a time where couples do not speak to one other, they do not have children and the suicide rates are high. His own wife Mildred comes close

In a futuristic, dystopian society, Guy Montag is a fireman who creates fires instead of putting them out. His job is to burn any homes housing books that are banned by the government. One day, while on his way home, a girl approaches Montag, talking about how people are so cut off from each other and how no one talks or really listens to anyone, instead each person watches television or listens to Seashell Radio. This opens his eyes to how detached, uncaring, and in-the-moment society has become, and he wonders if his job is really as noble he once thought it to be. This existential crisis intensifies when a woman would rather die with her books than save herself. Determined to figure out what is in a book that makes a woman a martyr, he steals

Montag realizes that there is more to the world than anyone talks about or knows. After feeling more and more unsettled by this, Guy gets in touch with a strange man he met at a park named Faber. When Guy is discussing how he feels to Faber, Faber tells him that “[books] are the pores in the face of life… if you're not driving 100 miles per hour, you're playing some game” (79). From this, Guy finally faces the reality that he has been living an incomplete life. Faber helps him realize that burning books isn't making people happier, but diminishing the quality of life in the world. It is putting a hole in people's lives that cannot be replaced. Furthermore, Montag recognizes that everything he does is rushed. He has zero time to his own thoughts and instead his thoughts are dictated through technology. Faber's wisdom is key in identifying the theme that life without time to think is not a life worth living because from Faber’s wisdom, Montag realizes his discontent with his thoughtless

In the beginning of the novel, Guy Montag meets a 17-year-old girl named Clarisse. During their first conversation, Clarisse asks Montag, “Are you happy?” (10). From this line on, Guy Montag begins to question many of the choices he has made even though, according to their law, he does no wrong. Just like many people today, Guy blindly does what he is told to do, not what he wants to do. The simple question from Clarisse leads Montag to discover that the root of his unhappiness comes from his lack of self.

In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury depicts an anti-intellectual society, set five centuries from now, where firemen set books that people have been hoarding or reading illegally on fire. In this dystopian society, literature is banned for the fear that it will incite people to think and question the status quo of their society: happiness and freedom from the elimination of controversy (Sisario 201). Throughout the novel, Bradbury uses several direct quotations from different works of literature in order to add a subtle depth to the ideas conveyed in the novel. Quotations are often used as demonstrations with the intent of depicting the aspects of a referent – used to distinguish the intended referent from other possible referents (Clark 768). Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman who believes he is content with his occupation and life in an oppressive futuristic American society portrayed in the novel Fahrenheit 451. In Montag's society, firemen start fires instead of putting them out, burning books and belongings of book owners. In this futuristic society people don't read books, enjoy nature, think independently or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive very fast, watch excessive television, and waste unnecessary time on listening to radio. However, his displeasure, undisclosed to even himself, becomes apparent after meeting Clarisse McClellan, the new neighbor and 17 year old girl, who engages in peculiar acts. Through her naive and deep questions combined with her strange affection

Guy Montag didn’t seem to know that many people, but the people he did meet changed him quite a lot. That being, when he met Faber at a park one late afternoon, Montag had little clue that Faber would soon help him become what his own job had fought against: a book reader. Faber not only changed Montag by trying to give him a better understanding of books, but by telling Montag how to be smart about the book situation: “‘Watch it I’m with you, remember that. I understand how it happened. I must that your blind raging invigorated me. God, how young I felt! But now - I want you to feel old I want a little of my cowardice to be distilled in you tonight…’” (100) Faber tells Montag after he threatens two women who were annoying him by reading a book. After Montag’s outburst, he doesn’t vent his anger by threatening people with books that society agreed to burn. But before Faber was introduced into the story, there was Clarisse, the “crazy” seventeen year-old from across the street. Clarisse taught Montag, without even meaning to, to slow down and to not live life like all of society had made it to be: fast paced, non-caring, and quite dumbed down. “‘I sneak around and listen in the subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?’ ‘What?’ ‘People don’t talk about anything.’ ‘Oh they must!’ ‘No, not anything’” (28). As Clarisse further explains that everyone is to caught up on the full wall sized TV’s and the jet cars that people would go out with on weekends and possibly return in a bodybag. Clarisse also showed Montag things you could only notice if you were to stop and take a good look at such as how the moon appears to have a face, that old leaves smell like

In the beginning of the book the setting takes place in a futuristic society where you are not allowed to keep books or read them, it's against the law. Guy Montag's job is to go through houses and find all the books that there are. He then takes them and burns them, and it's ordinary for him and the rest of society. He senses nothing bad about burning these books. But then Guy Montag meets Clarisse McClellan, she asks him if he ever reads the books that he burns, he replies no, because it's illegal. He sees bits of himself in Clarisse, as she's talking, she then asks him " Are you happy?" before she leaves him, and Montag doesn't understand why, but the question sticks with him, making him actually think if he is happy or not with

In a futuristic, dystopian society, Guy Montag is a fireman who burns homes housing banned books instead of extinguishing fires. On his way home, a girl approaches him and talks about how people are so isolated. This reveals to him how detached and uncaring society has become. He fears his job is not as noble as he once thought. This fear intensifies when a woman is willing to die for her books. Determined to figure out what in a book makes a woman a martyr, he steals a book, the last remaining Bible in his part of the world, before the house burns. Montag then seeks the wisdom of an old professor to help him understand the book. The professor explains that people do not want to think or have conflicting ideas, so they smother themselves in

Guy Montag is the first character that is introduced in this grim story. He is the fireman who is in charge of burning books and he is very set in his ways, as are many of the other characters throughout the book. The story begins with Montag meeting a seventeen-year-old named Clarisse McClellan while on his way home from the fire station. She explains to him that the original purpose of firemen was to extinguish fires, not to light them. This fascinates Montag as she continues to speak of the past and ask crazy questions, all about books and what life had used to be like. As we soon learn later in the book, Montag’s society has abandoned books and even entertainment. Clarisse is very thoughtful, and she irritates Montag at first because she challenges his most deeply ingrained beliefs with her innocent questioning.

Guy Montag, one of the main characters in this novel, is a fireman who burns books for a living. He is forced to do so by the government because that is his job. He has the scent of kerosene, “‘Kerosene’’’, “he said, because the silence had lengthened”,”’Is nothing but perfume to me.’”(4). He uses kerosene to burn the books because if you’re caught reading you will be killed. But early on in the book Montag meets a girl named Clarisse on his way home from work. She makes him realize that reading is important and without books nobody is truly happy. Mildred Montag, Guy Montag’s wife, is addicted to sleeping pills and technology. She is pale and ill-looking from the pills that she takes. She disagrees with Montag about reading books. She thinks it is pointless to read. “Mildred kicked at a book. ”’Books aren’t people. You read and I look all around, but there isn’t anybody!”’(69). Faber, a very intelligent, retired english professor, agrees with Montag and tries

In the world of Guy Montag, a Fireman, firemen burn books, they start fires rather than put them out. His world is filled with superficial relationships; media designed to control and numb people, his society destroys the dangerous free thinkers. Montag enjoys his place in his world. His job makes him feel good, like he is a protector of his world:

After receiving a routine alarm, Montag and his co-workers race to the home of a book-possessing woman who insisted on staying when the police came to take her to jail. In fact, instead of leaving she burned the house down herself, choosing to die with her books rather than live without them. Montag later contacts a retired English professor, Mr. Faber, and together the two devise a plan to overcome their twisted society by planting books inside the homes of firemen. That night, when his wife Mildred is hosting a party Montag breaks down and reveals a hidden book as he reads poetry to the guests. Low and behold, the next time the firemen respond to an alarm, they arrive at the home of Guy and