How Is Montag Justified In Fahrenheit 451

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.

Beatty is the fire chief and everyone is feared by him. Beatty tries to stop Montag on going down the road of believing books are not a bad thing, he himself has gone down that road and does not believe it is one worth traveling. Shortly after Montag kills Beatty he realizes that he wanted to die, all this time he wanted to be a character of his own book and after he died he finally was. Beatty had wished he could forget his past life and be happy like everyone else. Captain Beatty did not feel that books provided him with enough information about life he felt as if all the pages in the book were blank. He believes that books only lead to confusion and thought, which should be avoided at all

Beatty argued that, “Give a man a few easy lines of verse and he thinks he’s the lord of all creation. You think you can walk on water with your books” (Bradbury 111). In this line you can tell that Beatty is getting angry and intimidated that one of his own fireman had turned on him by reading the books without anyone knowing and that Montag would have the courage to do behind his back. Beatty thinks that he is losing power by saying that Montag can't “walk on water with your books” and that he is getting defeated because Montag didn't follow the law or what he had told him to do earlier in the

Because you know that he is angry and from reading before you know that he had been wanting to reveal his secret but he didn't have the courage but the anger just built up inside him and he snapped. His next step was to make everyone else see what he sees. When Beatty told Montag to burn his own house montag had already broken so he knew what he had to do. When he was alone with Beatty he had his chance to make his statement. "We never burned right..." (Bradbury 113) Montag is now gone full psycho trying to get his message though everyone's head but in reality this is what it really feels like. When no one sees what's

“Malcolm X is standing on a soapbox talking about a revolution.”- An abolition extremist that spent many years in jail. He believed that violence and force was the answer.

Bradbury also serves to warn us of the danger of ignorance in this futuristic dystopia. This again is reflective of the Nazi book burnings and the idea of people leaving behind knowledge and becoming ‘blissfully’ ignorant of the past. In Fahrenheit 451 the fireman's responsibility is to destroy knowledge and promote ignorance in order to ensure equality. Ignorance, however, promotes suicide, poor decisions, and empty lives. When Beatty discovers Montag's hidden collection of books, he explains that all firemen become curious of books, and may have time to explore them for a short time before disposing of them. He then tells Montag about the state of the world: people are made

Towards the end of the passage, Montag threatens Beatty with a fire hose, prompting a lengthy dialogue from Beatty. Beatty responds to Montag’s threats with an allusion to Shakespeare, saying, “‘There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm’d so strong in honesty that they pass by me as an idle wind, which I respect not!’ How’s that?” Beatty’s ease and familiarity with Shakespeare confirm that Beatty has definitely read books, and that he is an intelligent man has some notion of what books have held deep within their pages. In this way, Beatty is similar to Montag, he is another book burner that is knowledgeable about literature. What separates the two is that Beatty is simply unable to diverge from societal norms, and his stubbornness takes over and refuses to admit the worth of books. This differs greatly from Montag, who is finally starting to rebel against society. In this same scene, Beatty also taunts Montag when the fire hose is pointed at him, urging Montag to, “Go ahead now, you second-hand litterateur, pull the trigger.” While this may have just been Beatty egging Montag on, later on Beatty’s lack of resistance seems to suggest that Beatty really didn’t care whether or not he died. Moments before his death, Beatty simply says, “‘Hand it over, Guy,” and then proceeds to smile as he knows he is about to be burnt. Through dialogue, Bradbury is able to reveal information about Beatty’s background and knowledge of books, as well as his

Of all literary works regarding dystopian societies, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps one of the most bluntly shocking, insightful, and relatable of them. Set in a United States of the future, this novel contains a government that has banned books and a society that constantly watches television. However, Guy Montag, a fireman (one who burns books as opposed to actually putting out fires) discovers books and a spark of desire for knowledge is ignited within him. Unfortunately his boss, the belligerent Captain Beatty, catches on to his newfound thirst for literature. A man of great duplicity, Beatty sets up Montag to ultimately have his home destroyed and to be expulsed from the city. On the other hand, Beatty is a much rounder

Beatty supports this by saying since he has read some himself, he can affirm that they are worthless and contradictory. Through this experience, Montag has a new understanding of his profession. Although he is still skeptical, he knows more than he did before, and most importantly, Beatty has started to get Montag’s mind thinking. An important quote from this conversation is, “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal. . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it.” This is when Beatty is ‘confiding’ in Montag, making him finally piece together what he has been doing all of these years as a fireman. He finally can begin to comprehend the society he is in, and what measures the government has taken to subdue the population. Later on in the book, Beatty and Montag face each other once more. After Montag is brought to his own house and told to burn it down, and facing no escape due to the hound, he burns it down. After burning down his own home, Beatty tells him he is under arrest, and begins to provoke him. As Beatty clearly intended, Montag kills him, turning him into a charred corpse. The fact that he died by fire, and knowingly chose to die by the flamethrower is interesting. Nevertheless, this is the point of no return for Montag, knowing that he did what he had to do, and that he was now an enemy of the state. At this point, Guy

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

First of all, Montag faces government censorship over society’s citizens, which changes him to become a courageous character, and he learns that because the government has taught people to take what they have for

Faber changed Montag from being a confused man, to an aware, thinking and analyzing person that is deferent from the society he lives in. after killing Beatty, the chief fireman at the station who has read many books and memorized most of them. Montag seeks Faber 's help again, he was confused did not know where to do to escape from the mechanical hound that was running after him. Faber tells Montag to go to the forest, where Montag rested and thought about what happened and whether he did the right thing or not. At the forest, Montag meets a group of men that was lead by Granger; an author who is the leader of a group that hopes to re-populate the world with books.

My (TS): Throughout the book Montag’s feelings about society change when he knows something is missing, causing him to rebel against it.

Montag's attempts to rectify the damage his distorted society has cast upon humanity parallels with the prisoner’s return to the cave, where his newfound beliefs are rejected out of fear. Despite Montag's intentions, the public only attacks him, berates him and labels him a criminal for acting out and rebelling against the society’s wishes. Montag’s attempts to “sear all their faces and wake them up” only result in failure (Bradbury 128), as after all, the public is too afraid. Any threat to the fragile peace the society holds is automatically fought against. The members themselves protect the status quo by isolating outsiders who think differently, as Clarisse explains to Montag, “The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten

Montag is a conformist in the totalitarian society in which he lives.  He, in the beginning of the story, loves his job.  However, he is manipulated repeatedly by his nemesis, Captain Beatty.  Captain Beatty is a manipulator who is expert in being able to aggravate Montag into a verbal duel that is basically one-sided. Montag and Captain Beatty seem to have a relationship where the boss is always trying to pin an untruth onto one of his employees.  Montag becomes discontented at work.  He becomes complacent by going through the motions by not really concentrating on the job at hand.