Montag is a fireman but not the kind we might think of, in his society firefighter start them not put them out. They believe that books make people unhappy
Montag’s character in the beginning is portrayed as a proud man for what he does, but throughout this section he starts to second guess everything and curiosity sets in. This all begins when he meets a young women name Clarisse. When she first meets him she shows him a different point of view and thought process. Clarisse notices all the detail and tries to find meaning behind everything. When they talked Montag heard her point of view and ended up thinking about everything she said. He questioned everything he knew slowly, this is shown when Clarisse asks Montag “Have you seen the two-hundred-foot long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last.”, also when she says “…There’s dew on the grass in the morning.” When a few of
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This was the beginning of his curiosity in the way Clarisse and her family thought. As time went on he started to think about the things Clarisse had said and you can tell he feels happier and realized after he looks at the smaller things. He was fascinated by all the little things Clarisse told him, but one thing that made him more curious was how she described everything when her uncle was younger. Montag soon starts to question everything ,he starts at the fires they had and starts to ask Beatty about the thoughts behind sending the people to asylums, and why the job for a fireman changed. Near the end of this section when they are about to start the fire at a womens home Montags curiosity gets the best of him and
At first Montag is unaware of the true nature of his surroundings and feelings. “‘Bet i know something else you don't. There's dew on the grass in the morning.’ Montag suddenly couldn't remember if he’d known that or not, and it made him quite irritable.” (Bradbury, 7). The conversation serves to highlight his willful ignorance, the amount of things he simply never thought to realize, that existed just under his radar.
Montag, a fireman who ignites books into glowing embers that fall into ashes as black as night. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury expresses a message in which society has opened their doors to mass devastation. Guy Montag, a “fireman”, burns houses that have anything to do with books instead putting fires out like the job of a real firemen. In Montag’s society, books are considered taboo, and owning books can lead to dire consequences. Ray Bradbury portrays a society in which humans have suffered a loss of self, humanity, and a powerful control from the government resulting in a fraudulent society.
Once Montag witnesses the unethical extent that the firemen would go through to destroy the existence of books, he realizes how corrupt and unjust the societal rules were. “He looked with dismay at the floor. ‘We burned an old woman with her books” (47).
Montag is different than others around him. McGiveron said “An insanity of mindlessness” (Mcgiveron 1). This is the world Montag lives in. He is not alike his peers at all. “Montag has a conscience and a curiosity” (McGiveron 1). This shows he has a special set of traits that is rare in this society. Montag moves past things much better than those around him. An example of this is “even when Montag finally kills the taunting beatty he displaces him syntactically from the center of the action.” (McGiveron 2). Here we see the relentlessness of Montag. To include Montag is special compared to the rest of his dystopian
... ideas in books and understand them. Before this Montag never questioned the way he lives, he was blinded by all the distractions. The role that Clarisse plays in the book enables Montag to break free of the ignorance.
He uses someone on the inside of this dystopian society to show how those people think and what life is like in their world. It shows Montag 's ignorance at first, and it shows he subconsciously felt a yearning for knowledge, felt a curiosity in him, by taking books. It shows how his interactions with Clarisse start to change him, and he begins to realize his ignorance, his unhappiness. By how Millie tried to kill herself by overdosing on pills. By how Montag starts feeling real things again once he starts thinking. All these things show the unhappiness of these people, because of their ignorance, their false
“Behind his mask of conformity, Montag gradually undergoes a change of values. Montag realized his life had been meaningless without books” (Liukkonen). In the beginning of the novel, Montag said, “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (Bradbury 3). For most of his life, Montag conformed just like the other members of society. He set things on fire because it was his job and did not question whether or not it was the right thing to do. Throughout the story, however, he grew to find and voice his own opinions and resisted the conformity that his society stressed. When Montag had to decide whether or not to burn Beatty to death, he proved himself by not giving in to what was expected. He killed the captain of the police department, which was an entirely defiant act (Bradbury
The first event that results in Montag becoming a dynamic character is his conversations with Clarisse McClellan. She is seventeen, and people consider her insane and anti-social. She is considered anti-social, because she is talkative and expressive. In Bradbury’s made up world, the meaning of social is staring at the parlor walls (large TV screens), and having no thought at all. Clarisse is very different from the rest: “I rarely watch the ‘parlor walls’ or go to races or Fun Parks. So I’ve lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess. Have you seen the two-hundred-foot-long billboards in the country beyond town? Did you know that once the billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they even had to stretch the advertising out so it would last” (pg.7).Clarisse’s enthusiastic and cheerful disposition lightens Montag’s attitude, making him a more optimistic person. He is not so closed-minded anymore, and he learns to be himself, and sometimes care free. Montag learns to see the brighter side of things and believe in him...
In class we read the book Fahrenheit 451. The main character Montag has several qualities that change his views and decisions throughout the book. In the beginning of the story Montag was very confirmative and just went along with everything the government and didn’t really question anything but by the end of the book he was completely different. He had changed his views completely. One reason that motivated Montag to change so drastically was his curiosity. This caused him to question things and that led to some of his other qualities such as his open-mindedness. Questioning everything and talking to new people for information allowed Montag to become more open-minded and become open to more ideas. Another quality that Montag has that lead to his in change in the story was his change over time was his childhood memories.
Montag is influenced by Clarisse a lot. And, her impact on him is tremendous. She questions his whole life, teaches him to appreciate the simple things, and to care about other people and their feelings. “You're peculiar, you're aggravating, yet you're easy to forgive..”(Bradbury 23) Through all Clarisse's questioning, Montag knows that she is trying to help him. Because of her help and impact on him, Montag is changed forever.
Guy Montag is an ordinary fireman, whose job is to just simply burn books, and a follow the law,
When Montag meets Clarisse, his neighbor, he starts to notice that there is more to life than burning books. Montag states, “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I have used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of those books” (Bradbury 49). It begins to bother Montag that all he has done for the past years is burn books. He starts to rethink his whole life, and how he has been living it. Montag goes on to say, “It took some men a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! It is all over” (Bradbury 49) Before, Montag never cares about what he has been doing to the books, but when he begins to ignore the distractions and really think about life he starts to notice that he has been destroying some other mans work. Montag begins to think more of the world
The first of all, Montag loses his control over his own mind. At the beginning of the story, he meets a beautiful girl called Clarisse. She is a peculiar girl who wonders about the society and how people live in there. She tells Montag the beauty of the nature, and also questions him about his job and life. Though he has been proud of being a fireman, Clarisse says, “I think it’s so strange you’re a fireman, it just doesn’t seem right for you, somehow” (21). Montag feels “his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding one upon the other” (21) by her words. Everything Clarisse says is something new to him and he gradually gets influenced a lot by this mysterious girl. Actually, the impact of the girl is too significant that his mind is taken over by her when he talks with Beatty, the captain of the firemen. “Suddenly it seemed a much younger voice was speaking for him. He opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, ‘Didn’t firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and get them going?’” (31). His mind is not controlled by himself in this part. He takes of Clarisse’s mind and it causes confusion within his mind. It can be said that this happening is an introduction of him losing his entire identity.
At the beginning of the book Fahrenheit 451, Montag is a loyal citizen and firemen, who has rarely questioned the beliefs of society. He sees the world as any ordinary citizen (in this society) would, and is perfectly content with seeing flames eat the words and thoughts of a person. Montag would never question society as he “grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame” (Bradbury 3). This means that he did not really feel the emotions that he should have felt, and was blinded by society. He felt he was doing good for society, even though he had no evidence except for the book the firemen read from to learn about their profession. The quote “Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin. Rule 1. Answer the alarm swiftly. 2. Start the fire swiftly. 3. Burn everything. 4. Report back to firehouse immediately. 5. Stand alert for other alarms” (Bradbury 34-35) gives examples of how ignorant Montag was. He thought that because it was written in a book and because everyone else believed it, he also should believe it. Montag was the perfect citizen in his perfect society, but h...
While many people might think that because Guy Montag started out as a firefighter he can not be considered a ‘good guy’ or a hero, but it should be noted that his thoughts and actions are those of a person with good intentions despite starting out as a ‘bad guy’. In my first paragraph I will be stating reasons on why guy Montag should be considered a good guy or a hero. In the second paragraph I will state why his actions and thoughts do not make him a bad person. Lastly, I will state why Montag's actions and thoughts make him a good person.