Who Is Montag's Society In Fahrenheit 451

Montag is someone who has rejected his society in order for his own happiness. In the beginning of the book, Montag was a normal civilian living among others exactly like him. Montag starts to realize just how messed up the society that he is living in is. He comes to officially reject society when he's sees that things could be different, even if it's somewhere else. Montag realizes what it means to be a fully functional human.
Clarisse comes into his life but he denies that he is not where he wants to be. (Sip) Clarisse asked him questions that made him rethink what he thought the answer was. “Are you happy?’ she said. ‘Am I what?’ he cried. But she was gone-running in the moonlight. Her front door shut gently. ‘Happy! Of all

the nonsense”(8). Clarisse asked Montag this question because she wants him to think about his life and think about if he truly likes the things he is doing and the purpose of it. She asked him if he was happy because Clarisse knows that he will eventually really think about the question, whether it’s in the moment or long from then. She also put new ideas in his head that could be true. “Is it true that long ago firemen put fires out instead of going to start them?’ ‘No. Houses have always been fireproof, take my word for it.’ ‘Strange. I heard once that a long time ago houses used to burn by accident and they needed firemen to stop the flames”(6). Clarisse wants to open up the possibilities that some of the stuff that he is told, could be lies, but Montag is so brainwashed that he is in complete denial that anything is a lie. (Sip) Montag doesn’t look at why he is doing something, He just does it. without any thought, he thinks what he is doing is normal.“Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air.

He walked toward the corner, thinking little about nothing in particular”(2). Just like the rest of society, he chooses not to think about things that could put him in danger. Going outside the box is one of those things but by shutting himself out from thinking about the possibilities, he is restraining himself from the world that he could live in where he would be happy. He has ideas in his head of what happiness is but it is not true happiness. “Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered”(2). Montag doesn't think about why he does something, he just does it. He doesn't realize that what he is doing, isn't really happiness. He doesn't know what real happiness feels like so he congers ideas in his head. “He laughed. She glanced quickly over.’Why are you

laughing?’‘I don't know.’ He started to laugh again and stopped ‘Why?’‘You laugh when I haven't been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what I've asked you.” He doesn't even think about the question. He just responds by laughing, because his idea of humor is laughing when you don't want to think about something, just like when he smiles at the fire. When he meets Clarisse, he denies that his life is not what he wants it to be.
Montag starts to realize the things around him and starts to questions why things are done the way they are.(sip) Since he sees the world differently, he starts to think of how things could be better, and to his surprise, there are a lot of them.

He first realizes how people have no characteristics of their own. “But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else”(28). He looks around him and sees that nobody is different. Everybody acts the same, talks the same, and looks the same but nobody is unique except for Clarisse and that is why everyone doesn’t accept her. He wants to believe that he is one of a kind, but really, he has fallen into the government's trap, just like the rest of society. “They were all mirror images of himself!”(30). He knows that everyone else is no different than one another, but it comes as a surprise to him to see that he is a part of that world of no differences. (Sip) He starts to feel emotions, which is a key trait that the rest of society lacks. At the fire station, he has been around the hound for years, but just now he feels bad that it is being deprived of what it could learn. “That’s sad,’ Montag said quietly, ‘Because all we put into it is hunting and killing and that's all it would ever know”(25). Before Clarisse came, he felt nothing for the hound and never even thought about what it might feel, but Montag is starting to gain more human traits . Montag not only felt sympathy for the hound but he

also feels for a women that died for something she loved (the books). “No’ she said. ‘Thank you anyway.’ ‘I’m counting to ten,’ said Beatty. ‘One. Two.’ ‘Please,’ said Montag. ‘Go on,’ said the women.’Three. Four.’ ‘Here’ Montag pulled at the women. The woman replied quietly, ‘I want to stay here.’ ‘Five. Six”(36). Montag doesn't want to leave the woman because he would feel bad that he left her to die. Trying to convince her to stay is the human thing to do. Beatty is inhumane because he has no problem killing her, without a single thought. This is when Montag starts to question the humanity of the people around him.
Montag understand that he doesn't have to live the way he does. This is also when he officially rejects society. (Sip) Montag disagrees with the things in the society. He has other thought and opinions that differ. Clarisse is one of the things that Beatty and Montag disagreed on. “She saw everything. She didn't do anything to anyone’... ‘Alone, hell! She chewed you around didn't she!”(108). Beatty thinks that Clarisse is a nuisance and she does not belong here but Montag thinks that Clarisse is setting an example for everyone else. Montag thinks that books can save society but government keeps people away from them. Everyone is so afraid of books just because the government says bad about them. Montag discovers that if he introduces people to books, maybe they would not be so afraid of them, but they are so brainwashed, they won't listen to a single word he says. “You see?... You're nasty Mr.Montag! You're nasty!”(97). He sees that society is not right, and he doesn't want to be a part of it. (Sip) Some of the people in the society are so inhumane, that they don't have any sense of feelings at all. For example, the people that possibly ran over Clarisse, and almost ran over Montag. “They would have killed me’ thought Montag, swaying, the air still torn and stirring about him in the dust, touching his bruised cheek. For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me”(122). He is realizing that there is seriously something wrong with the society when people are killing people for fun. He doesn't want to be a part of this society because of things like this happening. He gets extremely angry when the women start to talk about their lives and how they think it is all going well. He also wants them to think about their lives, just like Clarisse made him do before he started to see things clearly. "Go home and think of your first husband divorced and your second husband killed in a jet and your third husband blowing his brains out, go home and think of the dozen abortions you've had, go home and think of that and your damn Caesarian sections, too, and your children who hate your guts! Go home and think how it all happened and what did you ever do to stop it? Go home, go home!" he yelled. "Before I knock you down and kick you out of the door!”(98). He doesn't understand how people could do these kinds of things and not feel guilty, or griefful in any way. Montag rejects society, knowing that this is not healthy or the humane way to live in a community.
Montag comes to be a fully functional human when he realizes what it means. When he realizes that things are not the way its suppose to be, that's when he comes to officially reject society. Montag saw how messed up the society was which led him to ask many questions. In the beginning of the book, he was clueless like the rest of society, and he did not know what it really meant to live. Montag rejected the same society that he thought he belonged in. How long before the Montag's of the real world step out and make a difference before “We're all mirror images”(30) of each other?