Is The Difference Between John And Montag In Fahrenheit 451

John and Montag have lessons to teach us in the real world. This paper will be analyzing Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet. While some differences between the character development of John and Montag may be noticeable, the similarities are much stronger. Two of the similarities between these two are that they learn knowledge is power, and figure out that they are not satisfied near the beginning, and one difference is that John limits his knowledge intake because it can destroy. There are strong similarities between John and Montag are important and should be analyzed carefully.
One similarity between the two is that they both learn that knowledge is power. As Montag said to Mildred about

Mrs. Blake, “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing” (51). Montag realizes here that books are power. In “By the Waters of Babylon,” John realizes that he has possession of powerful knowledge, “It is great knowledge, hard to tell and believe. They were men” (184). John knows that this knowledge could flip his society’s religion, which was the base of their whole lifestyle, upside-down. John and Montag have both learned that knowledge is power and that deserves great examination.
John and Montag both realize they are unsatisfied, so they go against the rules and norms of society. Montag thinks he is happy at first, but Clarisse helps him figure out that he is not. “Happy! Of all the nonsense. He stopped laughing” (10). He comes to the realization that he is not happy as he stops laughing. In “By the Waters of Babylon, John is knowledge hungry, “My lack of knowledge burned in me - I wished to know more” (176). John realizes he is unsatisfied with his lack of knowledge and wishes to know more. John and Montag both go against society because they are unhappy, which should be deeply examined.
But these characters are not made of only similarities, they are different because John actually realizes that John knows to limit his knowledge intake. An example of Montag NOT knowing this is when he tries to cram his head full of the Book of Ecclesiastes, or when he and the hobos plan on teaching all of the books they memorized straight away after the bomb. As Granger said, “and someday, we’ll remember so much that we’ll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up” (163-164). They plan on re-teaching everything to the survivors. In “By the Waters of Babylon,” John realizes that knowledge can destroy. “Perhaps, in the old days, they ate knowledge too fast” (184). This means that the knowledge destroyed them. John and Montag are different because John limits knowledge intake, and that should be heavily scrutinized.
While some differences between the character development of John and Montag may be noticeable, the similarities are much stronger. In the stories, they both realize that knowledge is power, realize they are unhappy, but John knows to limit his knowledge intake. These points are important because we can’t let anyone limit our knowledge, only ourselves can do that. I think this connects to the real world because some people choose to blindly follow leaders, rather than LEARN and make a choice for themselves. John from “By the Waters of Babylon” and Montag from Fahrenheit 451 both develop in similar ways, and analyzing how is important.