Professor Faber In Fahrenheit 451

Professor Faber was named after a famous publisher. He was one of Montag’s mentors. He was an ex-professor and knew a lot about books. Faber also had a lot of knowledge and understanding of the society he was living in. Because of his age (he was an old man), he had experienced the change in society, from the time when people could read books to when they were prohibited read to do so, were addicted to technology and what the government gave them. Thanks to his experiences, he teaches Montag about books and how they work, and what is their purpose, so he asks Montag: “Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores”. Professor Faber

explains to Montag how books are not just pieces of paper with information in them, it’s so much more, he says that books make us think, make us understand how we react to things, makes us understand why are we who we are? What is our purpose in life? Professor Faber gave Montag a very valuable lesson, “books reflect life, or at least the good ones do”.
Faber is fairly adamant about his philosophy - he calls Montag a fool, because he thinks that he has the reason and experience.

He doesn’t like opposition. He is kind of the same as Captain Beatty, fully fortifies, mentally speaking. Faber competes with Beatty in the struggle of Montag’s mind. He is not as menacing as Captain Beatty, but he does manipulate Montag through his two-way radio and accomplishes the things he couldn’t do because of his cowardice. "And something more! It listens! If you put it in your ear, Montag, I can sit comfortably home, warming my frightened bones, and hear and analyse the firemen's world, find its weaknesses, without danger. I'm the Queen Bee, safe in the hive. You will be the drone, the travelling ear. Eventually, I could put out ears into all parts of the city, with various men, listening and evaluating. If the drones die, I'm still safe at home, tending my fright with a maximum of comfort and a minimum of chance" (p. 218). Though the two-way radio has been seen only as a tool of the government, we now see that technology can be used for rebellion, too. With this ideas we can notice that Faber was the brain, and Montag was the body. Faber has always been a coward, and he accepts it. Faber’s role or motivations are complex: sometimes he tries to help Montag to think independently and other times he dominates him with his own ideas and directions. He is coward and heroic at

times.
Professor Faber explains what he thinks about the government, and how they manipulate and control over the society’s actions and thoughts.

"Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels any more. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily. Can you dance faster than the White Clown, shout louder than ‘Mr. Gimmick’ and the parlour ‘families’? If you can, you'll win your way, Montag. In any event, you're a fool. People are having fun" (p. 171). You can notice that the government fights rebellion with happiness. Rather than cut down the rebellion, they assure that it won’t happen in the first place. This means that they have restricted not only the actions of the citizens, but their thoughts as well. To rebuild the society they will need books and their koledge. Faber says, “A bomber flight had been moving all the time they talked, and only now did the two men stop and listen, feeling the great jet sound tremble inside themselves … Patience, Montag. Let the war turn off the 'families.' Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge… There's somebody who's ready to blow up... What? Men quoting Milton? Saying, I remember Sophocles? Reminding the survivors that man has his good

side, too? They will only gather up their stones to hurl at each other. (p. 178-81) Faber mocks at Montag's idealism, but really, the man has a point. It is books and knowledge that will help the world re-build "when it blows up." In fact, this is what happens at the end of the novel.