Have you ever asked yourself or ever wondered if you were a hero? Have you actually done something good the benefited the society or even a small group of peers? If you have actually helped to make a great change in a positive way then you can consider your self a hero, a protagonist/hero. When a character is described as a protagonist, it doesn't always mean the character is the one making the right choices or the better choices. Being the protagonist of the story means he or she is the main character in any story, such as a literary work or drama. “The protagonist is at the center of the story, typically makes the key decisions, and experiences the consequences of those decisions”, which is basically a character based on no actions. On …show more content…
the other hand, the opposite of hero is an antihero. The literal definition of the word antihero is “a protagonist who lacks conventional heroic qualities such as idealism, courage, or morality. These characters are usually considered "conspicuously contrary to an archetypal hero". Almost all the characters in the book Fahrenheit 451 are considered be anti heroes. They follow the rules and “stick to the status quo”. Montag’s actions, reasonings, and the decisions he makes, show that he is most likely an antihero protagonist. But, Faber and Clarisse both share the role of the hero protagonist. What really makes Montag na antihero?
Montag is like every other character with the exception of a few people like Clarisse and Faber. He is heroic in ways that are only possible if he breaks the law and goes against his career. Montag recognizes the tragic ways of society and seeks the truth for his own personal knowledge.
He does not have the bravery of a classic hero or he would intend to have others know the truth also. He runs from his troubles instead of facing them. Montag’s actions result in him gaining a true knowledge of society but in order for him to be considered an archetypical hero, he would have done what was necessary to reveal the truth and begin a restoration of civilization. An anti-hero, such as Montag, could be considered a coward, despite the fact that Montag is one of the few who accepts the danger and the potential consequences of seeking the truth by discovering books and their
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meaning. You know the definition of the word protagonist, but the opposite of protagonist is antagonist which is “a character, group of characters, institution or concept that stands in or represents opposition against which the protagonist(s) must contend”.
In other words, an antagonist is a person or a group of people who opposes a protagonist. Mildred, Montag’s wife, a dynamic character has slowly and slyly changed character and actions. The book introduces Mildred as a shy and introverted character, giving examples of her staying at home all the time, taking a whole bottle of her medications, which makes you question was she trying to kill her self and why. The reader when introduced with a character like Mildred would think that she incapable of doing anything.
Things go a whole different way at the end of the story, she changes so much. Mildred is first 100% with her husband,( it's really confusing how they didn't know why and how they got married?!). Mildred didn't do anything when she found out he had books hidden (sorta), but then… at the end of book, she told on him, it sounds a little childish but she literally told on
him. You would usually expect Mildred to be the last person to ever backstab or betray Montag. The book Fahrenheit 451 is all about unexpected turns, problems and situations. Captain Beatty is another character who is on the anti hero/ antagonist side, he acts exactly like Mildred. Throughout the whole story, the mental description of Beatty changes, first he is the strict and mean captain of the fire station, he then becomes this nice and friendly and calm mans when he found out Montag had a book under his pillow, but at the end of the story, he changes and completely turns against Montag. Since all the characters in the book were the same in the way they act, it was a surprise to the reader when the book introduces characters like Clarisse and Faber. The book really focus on Montag and his actions especially at the end which kind of makes it hard to determine if Montag is a hero or antihero. It seems like in the story he is doing all the things to make a difference but if you dive in deeper into the book, it's really that Montag is a very cowardly kid of character, he takes a lot of actions though. Clarisse and Faber were really the ones who actually pushed him to change his mapund about things, and without out then he wouldn't have done anything.
Therefore, these three experiences or people help make Montag a dynamic character. These people or events all affect him in a different way. He learns a lot from them. Montag would have said that they made a huge impact on his life, because he feels different emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Don’t forget, Montag went from burning books to preventing books being burned. It takes a lot of courage and inspiration for the Montag from the beginning of the novel, to become the Montag he was at the end of the novel.
Firstly, Montag is influenced by Clarisse McClellan because she is the first person he has met that is not like the rest of the society. Clarisse is a young 17 year old girl that Montag quickly becomes very fond of. Clarisse influences Montag by the way she questioned Montag, the way she admires nature, and her death. Clarisse first influenced Montag by the way she began questioning him often. Her questions would make him think for himself unlike the rest of society. “Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. “Are you happy?” she said. “Am I what?” he cried. But she was gone- running in the moonlight” (Bradbury, 10). Clarisse was one of the only people that Montag had ever met that had ever asked him that. This question that she asked him influenced him because he thinks about, and Montag asks himself tha...
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.
Guy Montag is the protagonist and fireman who presents the dystopia through the eyes of a worker loyal to it, a man in conflict about it, and one resolved to be free of it. Through most of the book, Montag lacks knowledge and believes what he hears.
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.
...radbury the protagonist Guy Montag had three mentors that helped him along his journey; Clarisse, Faber and Granger. Clarisse is the one who first opens his eyes to the world around him, Faber teaches him how he should approach this new way of thinking, and Granger establishes him as an intellectual who can help society rebuild after the destruction from the war. A line from the Book of Ecclesiastes Montag remembers very well sums up his transformation: “And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” (158) Now Montag is finally learning who he is and what he should do with his life; through his three mentors he has found his identity.
One of the main reasons that Montag changed so drastically over the course of the book was his curiosity. Montag spent a lot of time thinking about his job and started questioning everything he was doing. He starts wondering why books need to be burned and why things are the way that they are. Montag takes up a special interest in book and why things are this way. “Was-was it always like this? The firehouse, our work?” Montag asks Beatty showing his curiosity. Montag’s curiosity is what drives him to find out everything he can about books, society and the way that things used to be. It is only natural for him to begin to question everything especially because his job involves burning hundreds of books a day yet he was never told why these books need to burned. Imagine destroying an object everyday, and being told how important your job is. Naturally you would want to know why you are destroying these objects. This is what happened to Montag and Beatty tried to explain it to him and tells him he shouldn’t be too curious about it “A natural error, curiosity alone,” Beatty also asks Montag “Listen to me, Montag. Once to each fireman, at least once in his career, he just itches to know what these books are all about. He just aches to know. Isn't that so?” Curiosity is a very natural emotion and even Beatty, who tries to explain things to Montag and discourages books, even admits to looking a few books but says “I've had to read a few in my time, to know what I was about, and the books say nothing!” I believe that this would make Montag even more curious.
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 book Fahrenheit 451 , Montag undergoes major character development. He started from a weak, dependant individual, who could at most think for himself. Throughout the book, he slowly found more and more flaws in the society he had blindly trusted. At the end of the book, Montag is a strong-minded, focused individual who is not afraid to stand up for his opinion, but cares for his life. Montag sacrificed everything in his life (including his life) to stand up for his opinions, which he could never have done in the beginning of the book. Everything Montag did had a reason and he changed because of those actions.
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.
In this paragraph I will be stating a couple reasons why Montag should be considered a ‘good guy’ or a hero. My first reason is when Montag and Clarisse are walking on the sidewalk she tells him that she has to go to a psychiatrist. Before they split up and go their separate ways she tells him that she sometimes forgets he is a fireman because of the way he acts around her. On page twenty one Clarisse starts to tell Montag that he isn't like the other firemen because when she talks he looks at her and listens while other
It takes a great catastrophe for Montag to really look into life’s true beauty, but he still gets there. While the bombs are dropped towards the end of the novel, Montag and the group in the woods area ...
Books are outlawed and burned. People are being taken away for owning them. The government has made these laws. THis is the society that Montag lives in. He has figured it out and wants to fix his society, but first he has to eliminate the biggest problem. That problem is the government control.
Montag then makes his escape from the city and finds the book people, who give him refuge from the firemen and Mechanical Hound that is searching for him. The burning of his house and his Captain as well as the fire trucks symbolizes Montag's transformation from a mechanical drone that follows orders, to a thinking, feeling, emotional person, who has now broken the law and will be hunted as a criminal. He is an enemy of the state; once he turns his back on the social order and burns his bridges, so to speak, he is set free, purified and must run for his life.... ... middle of paper ...
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.