Essay On Beatty In Fahrenheit 451

APPEARANCE
“Montag looked at these men whose faces were sunburnt by a thousand real and ten thousand imaginary fires, whose work flushed their cheeks and fevered their eyes. These men who looked steadily into their platinum igniter flames as they lit their eternally burning black pipes. They and their charcoal hair and soot colored brows and bluish-ash-smeared cheeks where they had shaven close.” (Pg.30)

We can assume that Beatty looks like Montag, with dark hair, brows, and skin that is slightly burnt and dark from his job working with fire. As well as cheeks that are close shaven, yet stubbly looking from the ashes. In addition, because Beatty is more experienced than the other fireman, and is their captain, we can assume that he is most

likely older than the others. This means that his facial features will be less youthful and more aged than Montag.

WHAT HE/SHE DOES
Beatty is captain of the firefighters and Montag’s superior.

He is a very enthusiastic book-burner, yet has a vast knowledge of literature, which shows readers that at some point in his life cared very much about books. Beatty calls books deceitful and false, however uses his knowledge of them to manipulate Montag. He is continually a threat to Montag and often lectures Montag antagonistically, to prevent him from reading books. Towards the end of the novel, Beatty leads Montag to his own house for book burning, and goads Montag to do the job. Montag then kills Beatty with flamethrower, yet we see that rather than fighting with Montag to save his life, he simply accepts his death. Montag later realizes that Beatty had wanted to die, showing us perhaps that there was unhappiness in his life that we do not know

of.

SPEECH AND DIALOGUE
“It was pretty silly, quoting poetry around free and easy like that. It was the act of a silly damn snob. Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he’s the Lord of all Creation. You think you can walk on water with your books. Well, the world can get by just fine without them. Look where they got you, in slime up to your lip. If I stir the slime with my little finger, you’ll drown!” (Pg. 112)

Although Beatty is agonizing Montag for speaking poetry and reading books, he is lecturing parts of the bible to do it.

Beatty himself is a hypocrite, as he is telling Montag books are deceiving and untrustworthy, yet uses parts of literature to get his point across. In addition, the odd thing about this quote is that Beatty keeps criticizing and calling Montag names, even though Montag is holding the flamethrower. We don’t know if at this part if Beatty thought he was not in danger, or he keeps riling up Montag to get him to turn on his flamethrower. But we see that later on in the conversation, Beatty does not do anything to prevent his own death. There is an impression that Beatty uses his vehemence to disguise his true feelings, in which Beatty had an extreme dissatisfaction with his life and was so unhappy that he was ready to

die.

THOUGHT AND EMOTION
Throughout the novel, there is something unsettling about Beatty. Although he constantly states that books are evil and is very enthusiastic of burning them, it is obvious he also has fascination with them, shown with his vast knowledge of literature. However, it also seems that he is a troubled and complicated victim himself, as he once cared very deeply about literature, but as a committed citizen of the system, he is unable to follow his desires. As a result of being unable to follow his own ideas and desires, he is very unhappy with his life, because there is no purpose. Beatty might secretly want to go against the system as well, but is in too deep with the system or perhaps too afraid to initiate a plan, and is instead jealous of Montag for being brave and standing up against the despised system. Beatty shows this envy by antagonizing Montag throughout the book.