Fahrenheit 451 Character Development Essay

A dynamic character is defined as a character who undergoes an important change in their personality or attitude. The great protagonists in literature often go through an intense internal conflict, resulting in the character being perplexed as to which path is the right one to follow. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury follows a protagonist, Guy Montag, as he struggles with the choice between carrying on living in a brainwashed society or developing his own perspective on life, thus contributing to the theme of knowledge overpowering ignorance.

The novel begins with Montag as the destroyer of books, a man in love with the smell of kerosene and the satisfaction of spending his long day at work starting fires (Bradbury 3). The first part of the book is entitled, “The Hearth and the

Salamander”, two thing which appropriately represent Montag’ job and original values. The hearth is the central aspect of a home, it's what the rest of the home is built around. The salamander is an official symbol of a fireman, often appearing on their uniforms. Montag takes great pride in burning books and has never questioned why televisions and “seashells” have replaced literature to become an all-encompassing form of entertainment. Montag begins the novel in the same position as everyone else, simply accepting the rules of society and not noticing the false happiness society has been instilling in the population. He is happy with his position of authority and doesn’t realize that he is lacking anything until Clarisse moves in next door.

Ironically enough, it takes a teenage girl to spark a change in Montag. Clarisse is very inquisitive and aware, and she annoys Montag at first due to her ability to formulate a coherent argument against his previously unquestioned beliefs. Clarisse represents exactly what people in society are not supposed to do. She reads, takes long walks outside, and criticizes her school openly (Bradbury 29). In fact, Clarisse is made to go to a psychiatrist for her apparently obscure behaviors such as hiking, witnessing nature, and thinking for herself. Clarisse manages to open Montag’s eyes to the remarkable beauty of untouched nature, going as far as influencing Guy to taste raindrops, an experience that Montag later reflects upon (Bradbury 21). Montag’s time spent with Clarisse removes his mask of false happiness, forcing him to see the ugly reality of a deteriorating society.

After the death of Clarisse, Guy faces conflicting emotions not only in regards to his job but also his stereotypical wife and insignificant lifestyle habits. Montag’s eyes have been opened and he has become aware of the flaws in society, specifically the lack of true happiness in the world. Montag decides that life is meant to be full of experiences, even if that means breaking the laws of society in order to gain the knowledge everyone has been missing in their lives.

Montag turns to books, figuring that since they are missing as well, they must be the key to happiness.

A defining moment in Montag’s character development occurs when he steals a book from the home of a woman who would rather burn with her books than leave. Not only does Montag add a new book to his own collection, he feels genuine remorse for the woman who clung to her books until the moment she died (Bradbury 37). His curiosity naturally peaked and he began wondering what on earth books contained that made them worth dying for. After that moment, Montag tries in vain to read several books in a single day. While trying to understand what exactly the books hold, Montag turned to a professor name Faber. Faber gives Monag his insight and it wasn’t at all what he expected. Faber says, “Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical about them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe into one garment for us” (Bradbury 83). Faber then goes on to explain the three things that are missing; quality, leisure, and the right to carry out decisions based on

knowledge.

Montag’s struggle ties in with a key theme of the novel, the line between knowledge and ignorance. Montag’s job as a fireman was to destroy sources of knowledge and promote ignorance and uniformity. As Montag meets characters that threaten uniformity such as Clarisse, Faber, and the old woman, he is met with a wave of doubt. His search for knowledge strongly opposes the ignorance he once shared with his wife, Mildred, and everyone else for that matter.
At the end of the novel, Granger claims that they must construct a mirror factory and take a long look at themselves, thus circling back to the way Montag described Clarisse as a mirror due to her ability to make Montag see himself and the world more clearly.