Comparing Montag And Beatty In 'Fahrenheit 451'

The choice of what is done with the power of knowledge depends on who it is given to. A futuristic world where books are outlawed and burned for the so called power they possess, lives multiple firemen who have the job of burning down any and all houses that contain books. Our protagonist is a fireman who enjoys his job of burning, until on his way home from work he has an encounter with a strange girl who questions if he is really happy, causing he himself to question that as well. Her strange sentences push our fireman, Guy Montag, into stealing multiple books from houses he is burning and reading them. Once Montag realizes the corrupted world he lives where knowledge is a burden, he begins trying to figure a way to stop the firemen, but

Beatty whilst burning a house of a woman tells her that it’s her fault her house is getting burned. Beatty is ironically quoting a story from the Bible, one of the most well known books, while telling the woman how wrong she is for disobeying laws on books. He snarls at the woman," 'You know the law,' said Beatty. 'Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with each other. You've been locked up here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel' "(35).Beatty knows his ironic use of knowledge from books to scold another who has committed the exact same crime as himself, using his more superior intellect to mock others trying to gain the same advantage, while yet to see how our protagonist uses his newfound knowledge. This effectively starts the show of Beatty’s true colors and intentions for Montag as well gaining this knowledge.Once Montag knows the power of the outlawed knowledge, he does his best to find someone to help empower the idea of books by starting a conspiracy to bring the firemen to an end. Montag shows how one book can change an entire idea or belief greatly, while Beatty hides his knowledge to only use it against others in