'Ray Bradbury: Part 1 OfFahrenheit 451'

threaten me” (21). Clarisse helped Montag to start thinking and examining his life. The first time they met, Clarisse asked him if he was happy. Though Montag’s answer was “of course”, it gets him to think. He then realized that he was never happy, but “He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back” (9). Another time, she questions his family, that he was not in love with anyone. Montag was upset, but soon he realized that that might be true -- neither Mildred (his wife) or himself remembered where they first met. Clarisse also asked why he chose the job and that she heard fireman puts out fire instead of starting them a long time ago. They all made Montag think and question about his life and the world, which led up to all his following actions to save the society. Without Clarisse, he might just be a fireman forever, and probably

At the end of the book, Montag encounters fire once more, but this one completely changes the way he sees fire. He sees the fire through the trees in the wood, and it is so small and fagile that he is “afraid he might blow the fire out with a single breath” (139). Before, he had always thought thought of fire as this powerful thing that just consumd and took. Now it was a delicate flame that could vanish any second. As he continues to look on the campfire in the cold, he sees people gathered around it. It was “a strange fire, because it meant a different thing to him. It was not burning, it was warming” (139). For the first time, Montag sees fire as a comfort. This fire was not

Montag’s job position is a fireman, and rather than putting fires out Montag starts fires. He enjoys his job and sees it as a privilege.

At the beginning of the novel Montag was convinced that “burning” was the solution. He even said “ it was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed ”. Throughout the novel he becomes more

"With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting it 's venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history."

When Montag met Clarisse, he had a different look on life. Before he met her, he did not realize all that was going on in the world and after he begins to question his happiness.

Montag loves his job! The first words of the chapter say that it was a “pleasure to burn.” He loved to see things “eaten” and to see

We can tell that he wanted to burn his house because “He wanted to change everything, the chairs, the tables, and in the dining room the silverware and plastic dishes, everything that showed that he had lived here…” (Bradbury 116). He wanted to get rid of his old life and all memories of it. Beatty had said “Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean” (Bradbury 60). Beatty told Montag that fire can be used for cleasing – just burn anything that is a problem. Ironically, Beatty is Montag’s problem, so he follows his advice and burns him. With the use of fire, Montag successfully gets rid of his previous life and Beatty, the person who controlled him before. He is having a rebirth in life.

One night, while coming home from work, Montag meets a girl named Clarisse (pp. 3-4). She says she’s “seventeen and crazy” (p. 5). She starts to ask Montag very strange questions that have him thinking. At the end of their conversation she asks him, “Are you happy?” (p. 7). He thinks to himself, “Of course I am.” Later, however, he realizes he’s not happy (p. 9). Happiness is part of this book. In the beginning Montag thinks he’s happy, but realizes he’s not (pp. 7-9). This is the first part of “waking up” for Montag. Self- reflection helps him to start “waking up”. After this he begins to notice how far apart he is from everyone. He starts to ponder about things people say, like what Beatty says, and he eventually starts to hide books.

Montag job is to burn books and by burning these knowledgeable books, he takes away knowledge from the society therefore ignoring all the knowledge that can be given to the society. Montag's first sense of knowledge came from McClellan when she asked, "Do you ever read the books that you burn?" When Montag got home he thought about the question. Montag ignored the fact of what could be in books, he was just doing his job until he realized that books have power. Montag finally realized when he burned a library with a woman inside protecting her books. For the first time Montag actually thought of what he was doing. Montag had a curiosity of why the woman would stay in a burning library to protect her books. This is what sparked Montag to quit his job as a firefighter.

Montag believes it is important to have your own fire. When Montag was deciding not to burn things "He saw the moon low in the sky now. The moon there, and the light of the moon caused by what? By the sun, of course, and what lights the sun? Its own fire (Bradbury 140).

After living in a repressive society where self reflection and genuine feeling are discouraged discovering his unhappiness with life poses too much for his mind to process. In order to mirror this state in Montag’s growth Bradbury uses fire to symbolize an overwhelming and destructive force. To Montag, fire had once been source of a shallow sense of power but now he likens it to thoughts he has no control of. Fire takes on a new negative meaning, something that represents a destructive and more importantly untamed force. Furthermore, Montag becomes more enlightened later in the plot, even escaping the city and his hollow life to pursue his mission of preserving books and knowledge.

“It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatter and charcoal ruins of history.”(page 3) This shows that Montag had embraced censorship with burning books because the civilization has kept him captive without him even knowing it. Clarisse is talking to Montag about what firemen really do in their job, and how she mentioned their initial jobs was to put out fires. Montag replied, “No. Houses have always been fireproof, take my word for it.”(page 8) This illustrates how being a fireman in this society manipulates the mind into a state of ignorance. Montag had adapted to his censored

Montag loves his job. As the first paragraph states “It was a pleasure to burn”. Montag loved to see things “eaten”, “blackened”, and “changed”. He saw himself as the “conductor” with a “brass nozzle”.

Our first glimpse of Montag shows him absorbed in the pleasure of burning. Montag presents the fiery smile that betrays how strongly he is influenced by the experience of burning. Captain Beatty said “burn it all burn everything.” His eyes all filled with orange flame and a fierce grin on his face. Once every book is burnt, nothing will interrupt the continue of flux images.