Character Analysis Of Montag In 'Fahrenheit 451'

Montag throughout the novel faces situations and meets people who opens his eyes about society Montag is a fireman in the society; however, the job fireman takes on an entirely different meaning. Instead of stopping fires, Montag starts them. In the society literature is outlawed and it’s his job to burn the book along with the houses that held them.
At the beginning of the novel, Montag, like everyone else, strays from the unknown and what he does not understand, and by burning books he pleases the ignorant. He has a position of authority and never questioned his job. Until Montag meets a peculiar girl who is not afraid of him named Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse irritates Montag at first because she asks deep questions to the way the world is and makes statements about his life. Clarisse’s love of nature, people, and the way the world used to be is strange. Forced to go to a psychiatrist for strange behaviors she does, such as

catching butterflies and thinking independently. Her family is responsible for teaching her and Montag accuses her of thinking too much. Nevertheless, Montag is now intrigued and questions his own life and life around him.
Shortly after meeting Clarisse things only get worse. Montag comes home to find Mildred in bed, listening to her earplugs in the darkness, the room is described as “not empty” and then “indeed empty,” although Mildred is in the room she is not life like and mentally elsewhere to find that his wife has overdosed on her sleeping medication as he watches the “electric-eyed snake” Montag feels uncomfortable from the strangers who come with their machines replacing their blood “The layer upon layer of night and stone and stagnant spring water.” The replacement of her blood would not give her life or a soul. Poisoned blood suggests the empty lifelessness of Mildred which lead to her suicide although she is not aware she has repressed inner pain and severe depression.
He thinks about life and how no one has their own reaction without it already being paced there. In fact when Clarisse is found dead his wife Mildred talks about it nonchalant with no real emotion and unaffected to someone’s death this opens his eyes to how inhuman everyone has become to others and the life around them. He starts to observe more and notices how the physical appearances of other firemen are alike, which suggests how people are meant to think and act the same. He starts to become distant from the other firemen when he used to bet with them and release the hound to watch it kill animals to lying in his bunk alone. When he goes to his next job he feels uncomfortable since he usually only has to deal with burning books but as he witnesses a woman burn with her books he feels empathy for the woman which is uncommon. He starts to take consideration on others lives and becomes compassionate.
He soon finds himself stealing books from the houses he was setting ablaze and reads in secret he states “So it was the hand that started it all…his hands have been infected, and soon it would be his arm…His hands were ravenous.” He describes his actions as if he had no control over what he has done but he states this about his hand more than once due to his inner dissatisfaction to how life is that leads him to reckless actions to try to figure it out. Montag’s boss comes over when he takes a day off and explains to him that it is common for firemen like him to go through a phase like this he does not accuse Montag of having a book but give him twenty-four hours to find out what he wants to know then turn his books in for destruction. He explains to Montag on how burning books came about as he states “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. Take the shot from the weapon.” This showing how people think about books with ignorance to keep them happy since things, such as being offended by things that do not agree, feeling inferior to those who have higher intellect from reading, or people who are just not interested in reading anymore. So if books are gone everyone will be made equal and happy.
After the discussion with his boss he goes to his wife for help lead to her freaking out to why he would take a big risk like this even though she attempts to read along with him she does not understand and uninterested. He soon realizes his own wife is more interested in the parlor “family”. Montag asks Mildred “Does your”family” love you?” She does not understand this irritates him because they are married but in the beginning they don’t even recall how they met and he feels like he should love someone he is married to even if they did know and did love her would she love the “family” more?
Montag turns to Faber, a retired English Professor to help him understand the meaning of books when he hands Faber a book he says “Do you know why book such as this are so important?

Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores.” Faber states this because quality is characteristics of something and to him his quality is texture which is something that has feeling which is not something that monotone society has experienced. Pores is trying to understand something just to know something is like trying to fill a leaking bucket, because words slip from your mind before you even finish reading anything. Faber insists that it’s not the books themselves that Montag is looking for, but the meaning they contain. The same meaning could be included in existing media like television and radio, but people no longer demand it. Faber compares their society to flowers trying to live on flowers instead of on good, substantive dirt. Only wanting the best and not accepting of simple

reality.
They soon develop a plan for change Montag suggests planting books in the homes of firemen to create a bad reputation and see the firehouses burn. Faber doesn’t think that this action would get to the heart of the problem, however, lamenting that the firemen aren’t really necessary to suppress books because the public stopped reading them of its own accord even before they were burned. Faber says they just need to be patient, since the coming war will eventually mean the death of the TV families. Montag gets Faber to help along with the plan Faber gives him two-way radio earpiece so that he can hear what Montag hears when he talks to Beatty and talk in secret as Faber gets a hold of someone with a printing press. As Montag attempts to give Beatty a replica as a fire alarm goes off strangely during the day to find that it lead to his residence. As they arrive he sees his wife has left realizing he has been betrayed. Before he has to set his own books ablaze Beatty tells him “It’s perpetual motion; the thing man wanted to invent but never did. It’s a mystery. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibly and consequences. Clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical.” Ironically after telling Montag takes an extreme turn as he sets ablaze to his boss and flees the scene.
Montag leaving the scene a chase is called after him, he visits Faber, tells him he will be on his way to the printers to meet him in St. Louis sometime in the future, where he is going to meet a retired printer. Faber instructs him to follow the old railroad tracks out of town to look for camps of homeless intellectuals. As Montag set off everyone is watching the chase on the news as he runs towards the river he hears an announcement for everyone to go outside and look for him at the count of ten. He reaches the river just as the announcer counts to ten and all the doors in the neighborhood start to open and look. As he drifts down the river he thinks to himself into the night he thinks “The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time . . . Time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burnt!” he thinks of the moon and how the sun comes after burning away time as the sun rises and sets burning away people’s lives and what they’ve worked for. Therefore if he continues to burn things it will pass away quicker instead of degrading through time. He then washes ashore on the country side overwhelmed with the senses of nature.
The track leads him to five homeless men near a fire who are surprisingly clean and neat. The leader Granger invites him, tells him they have been watching the chase on the TV and been expecting him to come. Granger gives him a drink that will change his perspiration so the hound could not find him. They look back to the TV to see that they have killed a scapegoat to cover their humiliation of losing their prey. As he sits there in the silence of nature he thinks of Mildred how the silence would be intolerable which is sad to him. Although Montag feels more complete than ever he feels as if his body is one other than his blood, hands, and mind are separate and run on their own behalf. Granger talks about how they store the books in memory and are waiting for the day the world is ready for books again he says “The most important thing they have to remember is that they are not important in themselves, but only as repositories of knowledge.”
He thinks of his wife and thinks its odd how he does not miss nor be upset if she were killed. Granger tells him about his Grandfather and that if people change even a small part of the world they will make their place to be remembered.
Suddenly they see jets fly ahead and drop their bombs; wiping out the city from the explosion. During the shockwave he remembers how he met Mildred in Chicago suggesting that he finally felt a connection to her he never felt while alive. Afterword, thinking of the book Ecclesiastes and repeats it to himself. After the aftershock died down, the men arise from the ashes. Granger compares mankind to a phoenix rising again and again from its own ashes, tells them that first we must build a mirror factory to take a long look at themselves. The men set off up river to the city to find survivors in hopes to rebuild society.
In the end, Montag has fully realized how society lived in a world with no reminders of history or appreciation of the past; society learns from what is told to them that no one had their own thoughts or opinions and even if they did they would be considered strange offensive. Under the influence of media, such as Fast cars, loud music, advertisement, and “families” is the societies way to happiness they look for the next big thing new excitement a lifestyle with mainly stimulants as a result everything moving so fast with no time to think on their own. Montag has come to realization of the society and himself.