What does Montag think of his feelings would be if his wife dies?
Montag began to think about how him and Mildred’s marriage started, which both of them don’t remember. His thoughts were, “he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn't cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still more empty.”(Page 41), which means Montag won’t be sad about the fact Mildred has died but the fact he doesn’t feel anything but empty and how the society made him deprived in emotions.
What are Montag’s comments about the people in the walls?
Montag looks at Mildred who is watching the ‘relatives’ in parlor walls. He desires to tell her that Montag is not in love with her just like the relationship in the people in the walls. They are all fake and they are all superficial which are made up to attract the viewers in order to keep people watching the TV.
What does Montag think about the old woman and all the books he has destroyed?
Montag is kept thinking about the old woman who burnt herself with the books. He feels terribly guilty and even nauseous about the situation he had as a fireman (maybe also with the fact Montag couldn’t save the old women) but at the same time, Montag also envies her that the old women satisfied with her life with having and enjoying books.
Summarize Beatty’s explanation of how the need for firemen arose.
Captain Beatty explains about their job, fireman when Montag was still haunted by the old woman’s incident. Everything is, in fact, fireproof. Their job was to put out t...
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...ontrolled by government--Montag reconnects with his past and finally, recalls about where he met Mildred(it was Chicago).
What is the promise at the end of the novel?
The promise at the end of the novel is that just like phoenix, the from the destructed world, another new world formed by the ‘book people’ will be constructed and as a heritage, the memorized books would pass down to the next generations. Also, the difference between phoenix and human is that human can learn from their mistake and fix it for the future. At the end of the novel, Montag recalls a passage from the bible(allusion), “And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which have twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”, which means, the time for destruction has ended; the time for rebirth has begun.
The passage above is talking about how a woman burnt herself to save her books. The passage suggests how people fight for what they want. When the author included this event, he was trying to show how Montag starts to change. Guy Montag begins to doubt his job, and believes that he is not doing the correct thing, he realizes he is causing harm. Montag didn't understand why someone would sacrifice their life for a book, but the only way to figure that out was to read. The author made Montag curious of the event, and that's how he introduced his passion to books.
“I saw the damndest snake in the world the other night… you want to see that snake? It’s at Emergency Hospital where they filed the report on all the junk the snake got out of you!... would you like to go to that house that burnt last night? And rake the ashes for the bones of the woman who set fire to her own house! What about Clarisse McClellan, where do we look for her? The morgue!” (Bradbury, 69). All these tragedies serve to anger Montag, to motivate him to break through the surgery, rhinestone cage of his previously worldly
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).
Books are the enemy, they are evil, they are outlawed, they are burned. At least, that is how Montag feels before meeting Clarisse. The first line of the book reads, “It was a pleasure to burn” continued with, “It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (1). Clearly Montag enjoys his work and seems to have no remorse for what he is doing and the damage he is
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
In the end of the book we learn that the city Montag once lived in has been destroyed. It’s here where we get the end result of Montag, the man who once took special pleasure in destroying books now takes pleasure in preserving them. If not for Clarisse who opened his eyes to the truth through questioning life, or Faber who revealed the truth and magic in the books, and Granger who taught Montag how to preserve the books Montag could have very well been a victim of his cities destruction. It’s clear that Montag was heavily influenced by these three Individuals changing him from a once law abiding citizen of the futuristic government to a refugee of the law discovering reasons worth fighting for regardless of outcome.
Clarisse may be the consciousness of Montag because her questions drove Montag to his profound thoughts as they kept on having a conversation. Clarisse was a very peculiar girl that she has a very special feature which not everybody has. In my opinion, Clarisse is the igniter or a factor of Montag’s enlightenment in the way she made Montag to question his society and life.
Within the many layers of Montag lay several opposite sides. For example, Montag is a fireman who burns books for a living but at home, spends time reading novels, poetry, and other written material. Although Montag could be called a hypocrite, he does not enjoy both the reading and the burning at the same time; he goes through a change that causes him to love books. Humans have the power to change and grow from one extreme to another, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In addition, when Mildred is with Montag, Montag does not have feelings for her but thinks of her as she is killed by the bombs. He possesses both the knowledge that Mildred does not love him and the heart that truly cares, but he knows not how to deal with this. His feelings are oppressed; it takes a major event (the bomb) to jolt them from hibernation.
“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
Beatty’s speech explains why Mildred acts the way she does, which had started to become a mystery for Montag, She acts in ways that are robotic, or self-centered, or unfeeling. Beatty’s speech explains the reason
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
He realizes that he is limited to his knowledge and freedom by his government and he doesn’t want that for himself anymore. Bradbury symbolizes this when Montag says to Mildred, “ ‘There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stand in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.’ ” (48). During this quote Montag begins to question his society, and why he burns books. He becomes eager to know why they have certain rules and hopes to find the answers in books. Montag’s curiosity also is established when he says, “ ‘I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much? I’ve heard rumors about hate, too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don’t that’s sure. Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. The just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! I don’t hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it. God, Millie, don’t you see? An hour a day, two hours, with these books and maybe…’” (70). This displays that Montag is starting to open his eyes to the truth about the world around him. Montag is starting to question authority and the “true facts” that his government gives his society. Montag is becoming empowered and beginning to think for
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.
Some characters like Montag did not succumb to the ignorance of society. Unlike Mildred characters like Montag believed in the power books and knowledge. Montag was once like Mildred until he met Clarisse; his neighbor. Clarisse was different from anyone Montag had ever met. She made him question his career, his happiness and even his marriage. After talking to Clarisse, Montag realizes he’s been ignorant for his whole life and begins a dangerous search for knowledge. After eventually stealing a book and reading it Montag realized that knowledge is really important. Books symbol knowledge because they provide their readers with information they did not know prior to opening the book. Montag no longer believed that ignorance was bliss “”. Through Montag’s fight for knowledge Bradbury is able to help the readers to understand that people are afraid of knowledge because they fear making mistakes. “You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by” says Faber (Bradbury 104). Knowledge is gained from experience. The best and worst sides of Montag were revealed during his journey because he made mistakes and learned from them. At the end of the novel Montag like readers comes to the realization that knowledge and experiences is the true meaning of life.
Of all characters, Bradbury uses Mildred Montag to effectively portray the idea that the majority of society has taken happiness as a refuge in nothing but passive, addictive entertainment. She immediately reveals her character early in the book, by saying, “My family is people. They tell me things: I laugh. They laugh! And the colors!” (73). Mildred is describing her parlors, or gigantic wall televisions, in this quote. Visual technological entertainment is so important in her life that she refers them to as “family,” implying the television characters as her loved ones. By immersing herself in an imaginary world, Mildred finds herself able to relate to fake characters and plots, giving her a phony sense of security. This is necessary for her to achieve her shallow happiness, or senseless plain fun, as she lifelessly watches other people in her walls with a senseless mind. Her family in real life only consists of Guy Montag, her husband, whom she has no fond feelings about. Montag is so frustrated with Mildred because of her inability to express feelings for ...