Bluerock-McLeod Mrs. Piper Block A 7 March 2024 Essay Option 1: The Tragic Paradox of Captain Beatty How could a man who’s spent his whole life destroying knowledge in a “perfect” society not be considered evil? Captain Beatty is seen as the antagonist in Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel “ relentlessly violent.” He is seemingly very much against books. Throughout the novel, he pushes Montag, the protagonist, to his limits by taunting him about why books are dangerous, and ultimately trying to get him to burn his own house to get rid of them. However, his attempts to restrain Montag eventually led to his own demise. By taking a deeper look at this character, it is seen that many of his actions contradict each other. For example, he seems to have great …show more content…
Because of this, it is evident that Ray Bradbury created the character of Captain Beatty to be a tragic figure who, even with a flawed viewpoint, wanted to help Montag in the novel. Captain Beatty is a tragic character who wants to help Montag because he shows empathy for the protagonist, believes that he is protecting Montag from unhappiness, and eventually tries to redeem himself once accepting his flaws. This can be seen when Beatty visits Montag when he calls in sick after being forced to burn a woman due to his book-burning job. Instead of being angry at Montag for missing work, he seems to understand the concerns Montag has about continuing to be a fireman. As a result, the captain tells Montag the truth about the history of book bannings by sharing, “The bigger your market (the more minorities), Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!...It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship to start with,
In my opinion, the character in the book Fahrenheit 451 that is the most flawed is Captain Beatty. This character is very stubborn, he is ruthless, and self-serving. He is the head firemen in a world where they didn't put fires out, but they burned books which, in result, hurt many people.
The villain in question is Beatty, this man is the head of the fire squad that Guy Montag the main characters is a part of. This man is quite brilliant, but he is obedient to the government and tries to persuade Guy to conform to the norm and not to break procedure by burning the books that he kept. We as the reader see Beatty as the enemy trying to stop Montag from making a change in the status quo. Beatty, though that the government was right and he followed it with extreme faith and commitment, he didn’t want Guy to ruin this “utopia” that he was living in. Beatty tries to stop Guy peacefully by persuading him by saying "At least once in his career, every fireman gets an itch. What do the books say, he wonders. Oh, to scratch that itch, eh? Well, Montag, take my word for it, I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing!" page
... his argument thus leading to him questioning things more instead of accepting what life gives him. Finally Beatty teaches Montag something in his death. As Montag comes away from the incident, knowing he just committed murder, he also realizes that Beatty wanted to die and that it was no different from suicide. Beatty wished to die since his life was miserable without literature and he works as a fireman, the very people who burn the books. Although Beatty is a well read educated man, he conforms to society which forces him to do what he does not. Therefore he represents somewhat of martyr similar to the unidentified women that burned with her books earlier in the book. From him killing Beatty, Montag learns the misery of conformity and of the oppression living inside of Beatty.
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).
When one fears what one does not understand, he often becomes defensive, avoiding it at all costs. This is the problem facing Guy Montag; his society absolutely deplores challenge. Anything that can be perceived as offensive is banished. In their eyes, books are cursed objects which make people think. Without literature, the public’s thought is suppressed, and they live mindless lives. In the book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Beatty is the captain of the firemen. As a fireman, Beatty acts as the controlling arm for this suppression. He is the one harshly guiding the public towards apathy by burning their books. However, when seen as just a man, Beatty is not important. He is one fireman against millions of books. He is important because of what he represents to Montag, which is: the censorship of information, an impetus to learn, and what
Captain Beatty is Montag's boss. Once an avid reader, he has come to hate books due to their unpleasant content and contradicting facts and opinions. In a scene written years later by Bradbury for the Fahrenheit 451 play, Beatty invites Montag to his house where he shows him walls of books left to molder on their shelves.
Instead of saving people and their homes, his job is to burn books and ruin anything to do with knowledge, enlightenment and freedom. Throughout the book, the main character Montag undergoes a rapid transformation from being disengaged from himself and the world, to a man curious about books, nature and feeling, to finally a brave man who is willing to anything to keep his freedom. 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.
Are you really happy? Or are you sad about something? Sad about life or money, or your job? Any of these things you can be sad of. Most likely you feel discontentment a few times a day and you still call yourself happy. These are the questions that Guy Montag asks himself in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book people are thinking they are happy with their lives. This is only because life is going so fast that they think they are but really there is things to be sad about. Montag has finally met Clarisse, the one person in his society that stops to smell the roses still. She is the one that gets him thinking about how his life really is sad and he was just moving too fast to see it. He realizes that he is sad about pretty much everything in his life and that the government tries to trick the people by listening to the parlor and the seashells. This is just to distract people from actual emotions. People are always in a hurry. They have 200 foot billboards for people driving because they are driving so fast that they need more time to see the advertisement. Now I am going to show you who are happy and not happy in the book and how our society today is also unhappy.
The government in the book is very keen on censorship. Everyone just follows the government and believes that if books are banned nothing good could possibly come from them, but some people, like Montag, begin to ask themselves what is so bad about books? What is funny to me is that in the book Bradbury conveys that people really don’t have many beliefs or value anything other than technology, but there are a select few like Montag that want to challenge that. Beatty says to Montag, “The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we’re the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought.” (BradBury 62). From the quote one can tell that Beatty is happy with everybody being alike. He thinks that he is actually doing good by saving the people who want to be different, which will cause rebellion in the long run The government thinks that those who have “conflicting” theories are making everybody unhappy. Another way the government limits the people is by limiting the idea and belief of knowledge. At the time Montag doubts why books are immoral material Beatty explains to him that the knowledge contained in books is considered a weapon. Beatty says, “The word intellectual of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar.” (Bradbury 58). To have intellect and to challenge ideas is ignored and said to be unfamiliar, and these people are trained to “dread” the unfamiliar. By ignoring the ability to be knowledgeable society is being ruined. Some might say that by dreading the unfamiliar can lead to less confusion, but confusion is a good thing because it means you are trying to understand the problem. Evidently one can see that by ignoring people’s beliefs and ideas society will destroy
Montag witnesses a woman burn along with the books in her house at the hands of him and his co-workers. The next day, he is too traumatized to go to work and stays at home instead. Beatty, Montag’s boss, pays him an unexpected visit and attempts to console his troubled mind. In an effort to comfort Montag, Beatty explains that “ ‘[w]e must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. [....] Breach man’s mind. [T]here was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. [...] [A]s custodians of our peace of mind, [...] [t]hat’s you, Montag, and that’s me” (Bradbury 55-56). As shown by his statement that everyone is not “born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but [...] made equal’ ” so that there is nothing “ ‘to judge themselves against,’ ” Beatty is explaining the reasoning behind their society’s mindset. He justifies the death of the woman by implying that those who are different are also catalysts for conflict. Bradbury’s simile identifies the corruption of their government as they strip people of their rights in order to effectively control the mass population. Meanwhile, Montag absorbs this new perspective, no longer left in his state of unawareness. In addition, his own purpose in life is being defined in terms of society when Beatty claims that “there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. [...] [A]s custodians of our peace of mind, [...] [t]hat’s you, Montag, and that’s me.” Provided with this reasoning, Montag is finally able to begin forming an understanding of how the world operates through society’s perception. Similar to Montag, the prisoner begins his ascension
...r, to judge themselves against."(Bradbury 58). The government is trying to create a society where all are equal and where everyone “seems” happy. Beatty is trying to tell Montag to be like everyone else, to remain as a “normal” fireman, to continue burning books, to continue being “happy” with his life. The severe government control is the final factor that leads to the dystopian government.
Of all literary works regarding dystopian societies, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps one of the most bluntly shocking, insightful, and relatable of them. Set in a United States of the future, this novel contains a government that has banned books and a society that constantly watches television. However, Guy Montag, a fireman (one who burns books as opposed to actually putting out fires) discovers books and a spark of desire for knowledge is ignited within him. Unfortunately his boss, the belligerent Captain Beatty, catches on to his newfound thirst for literature. A man of great duplicity, Beatty sets up Montag to ultimately have his home destroyed and to be expulsed from the city. On the other hand, Beatty is a much rounder character than initially apparent. Beatty himself was once an ardent reader, and he even uses literature to his advantage against Montag. Moreover, Beatty is a critical character in Fahrenheit 451 because of his morbid cruelty, obscene hypocrisy, and overall regret for his life.
Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance to Today Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence of the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today, which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books. Patai explains that Bradbury saw that people would soon be controlled by the television and saw it as the creators chance to “replace lived experience” (Patai 2).
“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
from, but is sure that he has been there for a long time hovering in