Montag's Role In Fahrenheit 451

The role played by an individual in a community highly depends on their character and this goes hand in hand with the individual's beliefs. Most people are happy for doing what they believe is best for the wellbeing of the community they live in. What kind of personality would a person who takes pleasure in doing his job develop after discovering that he is not joyous of the role played by his position in the society? It is precisely such a person, Guy Montag, a fireman, who Ray Bradbury portrays in his book "Fahrenheit 451." The story is set to resemble a future city where books are considered to be contraband. The events in the story unfold when the protagonist, Montag, starts to question his happiness with the status quo of the society.

Montag's boldness grows after he encounters a woman who is willing to die because of her believe in books. As the author says, the woman refuses to leave the house and ignites the fire that burns her together with her books. After witnessing this, Montag starts to doubt his ability to continue to work as a fireman. Instead, he becomes more fixated on trying to share his views about books with other people. For instance, Montag shares a revelation with his wife that there is a man behind each book. He says, "And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books" (49). This revelation proves that Montag has transformed enough to express his thought of how important books are to people. He is no longer afraid of what his wife will think of him because of sharing his thoughts. In fact, he is convinced that sharing his thoughts with his wife will help to reduce the social divide between them. Montag doesn't only perceive books as the solution to his personal life but also as a possible answer to the problems facing the society such as the warfare in the book. To present his argument on the importance of books to his wife, he asks rhetorical questions such as "Is it true, the world works hard, and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?" (70). These questions intend to show how the people's hatred for books in this society is responsible for the warfare in