Guy Montag's Fahrenheit 451

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

Guy Montag, on the other hand, is a fireman who starts fires, rather than stops them, in order to burn books, which are banned. Anyone caught with books are reported and their house and sometimes the people themselves are burned to the ground. People in his society don’t read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Guy is struggling with the meaninglessness of his life. His wife doesn’t seem to care and when he meets a seventeen year old girl named, Clarisse McClellan it opens up his eyes to the emptiness in his life. After this Montag becomes overwhelmed because of the stash of books in his house that he stole while on the job. Beatty, the fire chief, says that it’s normal for every fireman to go through a stage of wondering what books have to offer. Beatty gives Montag the night to see if the books have anything valuable in them, and to return them in the morning to be burned.

People can change due to the influence of other people. Guy Montag changes from being a book burning monster to an independent knowledge seeker due to the influences of Clarisse McClellan. Montag in Fahrenheit 451 by: Ray Bradbury shows how he acted before he changed, after meeting Clarisse, and after meeting Faber.

(SIP-A) Montag questions his own happiness and the society around him. (STEWE-1) Montag is questioned about his own happiness, “Are you happy?” (7), causing him to start questioning the society he lives in. “He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs”(9). He realizes that he is not as happy like the rest of the people in the society believe they are, he knows something is missing. “When did we meet and where?” (40) Montag questioned his wife Mildred when they met and they both could not remember. (STEWE-2) Montag now knows that something in his life is missing but he just does not know what forcing him to ask questions. “Well wasn’t there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just one wall but, so far, three! And expensive too” (41). He needs someone to hear him out and listen to what he has to say because at the moment he has nobody that he can talk to. “Nobody listens any more. I can’t talk to the walls because they’re yelling at me. I can’t talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say”(78). Montag resorts to his old friend Faber that he can talk to about everything. (SIP-B) Montag knows what is missing in the society. (STEWE-1) Montag eventually finds out that the happiness/knowledge factor is missing in their society, that everyone is being

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury states the negative effects of technology. Bradbury illustrates a society where books are banned and people entertain themselves with parlor walls, which is a TV. One of the characters Mildred, who is the wife of Montag, a fireman who is paid to burn books. Mildred is always attached to technology and can’t get away from it. She is usually watching the parlor or listening to her seashell earbuds. Bradbury uses the literary element of indirect characterization on Mildred to suggest how she is selfish and thoughtless, examining the negative effects of technology when one constantly uses it and relies on it which causes obsession and over-reliance towards technology leading one to not think critically

Dynamic characters undergo inner change. In Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag, a fireman, whose job involves finding “forbidden” books and burning them, along with the house, and residents if necessary. This futuristic society has given way to ignorance and hatred of literature. They freely gave it up for the quick fix of simpler technological entertainment. Through Montag’s interactions with other characters, he learns and grows from a close minded worker who enjoys burning books, into an open minded intellectual. Clarisse, an old woman, and Faber help Montag’s character change over the course of this novel. Montag's personal growth as a dynamic character comes in the form of an awakening.While walking to work, Montag meets Clarisse, a nature loving, seventeen year old.

Guy Montag is a firefighter and a firefighter in his society burns books because it is a

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, is a prime example of social criticism. The story sets in the 24th century where people race jet cars; the author’s idea of the future. It shows a flawed social structure, controlled by the media and government with banning and burning of books, and suppressing society’s minds from history. Their logical thought was that it would keep society from thinking too much, which in turn would prevent bad thoughts, and to keep them “happy all the time”. The book tells a story of Guy Montag, the protagonist, and his life as a book burner. He was an “instrument” of the government, a firefighter that was used to suppress information from people by burning all books. The characters live in a world where the past is hidden from them. The government has brain washed society and they are forced to contemplate on what is true and what is not. Montag plays a round character that undergoes change throughout the story. He starts as a narrow-minded character that does what he is told, no questions asked. He has lived his life thinking he was happy. As a reader, you will begin to sense a character change in Montag as this paper will analyze certain events that occur in his life representing an individual fighting against conformity. It begins with control of the masses by censorship as society is censored from history by book burning and oppressive technology. The rise of Montag’s character development starts to socially rebel from societies norms causing him

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

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

Guy Montag is the protagonist and central character of the book, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury that transforms from a conformist in a totalitarian society to rebuilding a society that reads books. Montag fits the cliché description of a good-looking male with “black hair, black brows…fiery face, and…blue-steel shaved but unshaved look.” (Bradbury, 33)  For the past eight years he has burned books. He is a 3rd generation firefighter, who in the beginning of the story, loves his job, which consists of burning the homes of people who perform criminal acts of reading and keeping books in their homes. By understanding Montag’s relationships, discontentment, and future, one can begin to understand the complexities of Guy Montag.

As the narrator once said “So it was the hand that started it all . . . His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms . . . His hands were ravenous.” Implying how Guy Montag was quite the hands on type of protagonist. As if trying to set off an image, allusion of how it wasn’t necessarily Guy who set this off yet his mettlesome hands. The audience can relate to Montag’s mission, yet the way he goes towards his ending achievement is quite different, and pretty clumsy in its own way. Montag’s trust and belief into his career and how his society functioned, started to change tremendously after his encounter with little Clarisse McClellan. As he comes into contact with the hidden away and banned literature, he becomes quite confused

The first character in the novel Fahrenheit 451 who influences Guy Montag is seventeen year-old Clarisse McClellan. The first time Guy and Clarisse cross paths occurs when Guy is walking home from work close to midnight. They meet on an empty sidewalk and quickly begin conversation. As they continue talking, Guy notices that Clarisse is not an average teenager because of the deep questions and thoughts she has. Clarisse questions Guy’s contentment and makes him realize the absence of love and pleasure in his life. Clarisse acts as a goad to push Guy towards a much needed self-examination that later helps him overcome his fear of bringing out the books he has collected over the years and start to look for the meaning in them. Because of Clarisse, Guy is able to transform into a more self-aware man who can now decode his feelings and realize what he needs to have a flourishing life. The second character I chose who impacts Guy Montag is Professor Faber. Guy met Faber in a park a year before this novel takes place when Guy suspected Faber of having a book. When Guy finally builds up his interest in wanting to know more about his secret books, he calls Faber for aid. With Faber’s knowledge, Guy is able to understand viewpoints from different authors and eventually escape the city after he is reported for having books. Alongside Clarisse, Faber is able to help Montag from being completely molded into an average city citizen who is isolated from the knowledge that books are,

Now to summarize what the story is about our protagonist is Guy Montag, who is a firefighter that burns books since they are illegal. Then one night while walking from the fire station he runs into a teenage girl Clarisse, who tries to enjoy nature and the things that people do not appreciate anymore. Her innocence and free thinking cause Guy Montag to question his own happiness and society. That night he comes home to Mildred, his wife, to her overdosing on sleeping pills, which frightens him and makes him wonder his relationship with his wife. Then the next day the firemen receive a tip about an old woman that was holding books and the scenario goes downhill and the old woman torches herself with the books. A couple days later, Clarisse is killed in a car accident. This aggravates Montag and he wonders why someone would die for books and thinks that maybe books are the answer.

Due to the anti-intellectualism spread by the government in this novel, a fireman has to burn books and the house that the books are in, with or without the owner inside. The protagonist Guy Montag was a fireman who questioned what himself and the others he worked around him did for a living, if books were really something to die