The flash of rusty red and yellow smoke glow above the crackle of fresh books being burned. A foggy night is lit up with a house fire. Behind a helmet labeled 451 is a man in his 30's smiling from ear to ear, Guy Montag. Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451. Guy is a typical fireman who loves the sight of fire and smell of burning books. However, his viewpoint on books and fire change throughout Fahrenheit 451 as well as his personality. Guy Montag evolves only to find his true self that is not molded by society. At the beginning of the novel Guy is an untroubled, outward fireman, he reveals how unpredictable he is and lastly concludes to be a volatile, strong willed man.
When Guy Montag is first introduced to readers he is conducting the burning of a house. “ It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed”(Bradbury, 1). Montag was untroubled by burning other’s houses to the ground. In fact he enjoyed burning houses and always felt a smile creep up on his face after a burning. One night when coming home from a burning, Montag runs into a seventeen year old, Clarisse McClellan. She starts to ramble about how her uncle was once arrested and that drivers don’t know what grass is. When she
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One night Captain Beatty randomly shows up at Montag's house to only deliver the news that Montag's house is going to be burned down. Montag was speechless. This is one of the few times Montag has ever been silent. Suddenly, Montag turns volatile and burns Captain Beatty. " You always said, don't face a problem, burn it”(Bradbury, 157). Then Montag makes another impulsive move and runs away from the cops, sprinting and dodging all the deafening sirens and lights. Montag finally reaches the light and discovers how strong willed he has been and discovers that his true passion is books and not burning the dusty pages of
Montag at the beginning of the book is a person that you could love and hate. Montag was a person who loved his job as a firefighter. To Montag he got pleasure out of burning the books. One of Montag's favorite things from burning the books was he would put a marshmallow and put it on a stick and roast it.When Montag's done and goes home he goes to bed with a smile on his face. Then everything changes once he meets Clarisse.
In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag is a very interesting and unusual character. Not only is Montag a curious character, the story itself is also far from traditional. While the storyline of the novel does follow the typical Hero’s Journey path, Montag himself does not possess the qualities and characteristics of a hero. The contrast between the way the story is a monomyth, while Montag is not, can be seen throughout the book and makes for a captivating, sometimes confusing read.
A fire starts out as a small match, and it moves to a roaring flame. Guy Montag is also a simple match when he is introduced in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. He starts out as a casual fireman, and he is hypnotized by society. Montag’s life sees a spark of change as the story begins. Many events influence his characteristics. When he is filling a house with kerosene and the lady inside voluntarily remains inside to burn. When the house is finally ignited, Montag suddenly ponders why a person would die over books. He fights to find a clear answer and discovers that only books can restore thought to society. Montag is a changing character throughout the novel. Like a match held to a newspaper, Montag’s mind starts searing away in thought.
For instance, when Montag had the conversation about what fire was with Beatty; Beatty explained, “Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean” (57). This embodies that Beatty was trying to use his prior knowledge to tell Montag about the different aspects of fire, while also giving him a warning to not go against society’s regulations. It also leads Montag on his journey to Faber, because after he acknowledged the destructive use of fire, he decided to go against the censorship of books in society and try to save them. This proves that Beatty initiated Montag to change thoughts about their society and himself with books and fire. The most significant example of how Beatty transformed Montag was when he burned down his house, while saying, “ Now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he’s burnt his damn wings, he wonders why” (107). When Beatty stated this, it triggered Montag to get too emotional and kill Beatty out of resentment. This act showed why Montag rebelled against the status quo of society, and why he publically acted upon it. It proves that Montag was going to go on as leader of the outsiders. Through Beatty’s influence, Montag developed from a fearful outsider into a rebellious leader in
Later when Montag was arguing with his wife about whether he should keep the books or not, he argues that, “you never talked to her [Clarisse]. I talked to her.. men like Beatty are afraid of her.. I suddenly realized I didn’t like them [firemen] at all, and I didn’t like myself at all anymore. And I thought maybe it would be best if the firemen themselves were burnt” (64).
The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman in the 2050’s. In this dystopian society, the fireman's job is to burn all of the books and the houses they find them in. Montag lives with his wife Mildred, who spends most of her time watching TV with her “family” that are just characters in shows. Throughout Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag changes by starting as a normal person who is a bit oblivious, and then he becomes rebellious and manipulative; at the end Montag has a different outlook on his beliefs and is hopeful.
Guy Montag is an ever evolving character in Fahrenheit 451. Montag is a very complex character who goes through many different changes throughout the story. According to Student’s Encyclopedia of American Characters, “Montag is a complex character who undergoes significant changes during the course of the novel” (Students’ Encyclopedia of American Characters 1). This proves that Montag is a dynamic character who goes through many different challenges and changes in this book. At the beginning of the book, Montag just lives his normal life like he has for many years before.
Guy Montag is your typical headstrong character that is the hero or protagonist that never loses sight of what he is after. Through people portraying the man he wishes he was and characters setting him back, Montag fights his way through a foggy dystopian society in which has him playing the role of a fireman who starts the fires. Throughout Fahrenheit 451, Montag proves to be a character of change and a character of sheer willpower. Montag first starts out as the character that shows to be a follower and a victim to a society that has only the most powerful individuals do the thinking for the entire world.
Guy Montag, on the other hand, is a fireman who starts fires, rather than stops them, in order to burn books, which are banned. Anyone caught with books are reported and their house and sometimes the people themselves are burned to the ground. People in his society don’t read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Guy is struggling with the meaninglessness of his life. His wife doesn’t seem to care and when he meets a seventeen year old girl named, Clarisse McClellan it opens up his eyes to the emptiness in his life. After this Montag becomes overwhelmed because of the stash of books in his house that he stole while on the job. Beatty, the fire chief, says that it’s normal for every fireman to go through a stage of wondering what books have to offer. Beatty gives Montag the night to see if the books have anything valuable in them, and to return them in the morning to be burned.
Guy Montag is the protagonist and central character of the book, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury that transforms from a conformist in a totalitarian society to rebuilding a society that reads books. Montag fits the cliché description of a good-looking male with “black hair, black brows…fiery face, and…blue-steel shaved but unshaved look.” (Bradbury, 33) For the past eight years he has burned books. He is a 3rd generation firefighter, who in the beginning of the story, loves his job, which consists of burning the homes of people who perform criminal acts of reading and keeping books in their homes. By understanding Montag’s relationships, discontentment, and future, one can begin to understand the complexities of Guy Montag.
Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy Montag, a weary fireman who was initially satisfied with blindly following his orders to
Montag burns his house, and with it, his entire life. He wants to start over completely, forgetting about his past, where he had hated and destroyed books. He doesn’t “face [his] problem[s], [he just] burn[s] [them]” (115). He burns his house, which is filled with memories of his loveless marriage. He burns Captain Beatty, who had taunted him and told him that books were horrible. He burns the mechanical hound and the salamander, which had aided him in the horrible deeds he had commited.
The first main character of Fahrenheit 451 is Guy Montag. He is a 30 year old fireman, who has black hair and smelled of kerosene, and at first wasn’t an individual or a thinker, but developed into one as the story progressed. He is a dynamic character who was very angry and confused about his life, and the life his society tells him to live. Montag is the protagonist, and he goes against the government to change the society for the better. His goal is to preserve knowledge and literature for future generations. Montag said, “‘I realized that a man was behind each one of those books’” (49). This shows that he acknowledged that books were written by real people, with their real thoughts in them; that they had details and meaning to them. This was something most people in this society did not realize.
Guy Montag, the main character in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, goes through a huge change in his life. He changes from a typical fireman who follows the laws, into a person who challenges the law. Montag wakes up from being numbed and realizes that he is unhappy. Montag 's wife, "Mildred", who is addicted to Television and radio, did not care about Montag 's feelings. However; Clarisse and Faber played a big role in Montag 's life. Montag is a metaphor for a numbed society and his courage is demonstrated as he wakes up and evolves into his real human self throughout the book.
Guy Montag is a fireman who is greatly influenced in Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451. The job of a fireman in this futuristic society is to burn down houses with books in them. Montag has always enjoyed his job, that is until Clarisse McClellan comes along. Clarisse is seventeen and crazy. At least, this is what her uncle, whom she gets many of her ideas about the world from, describes her as. Clarisse and Montag befriend each other quickly, and Clarisse's impact on Montag is enormous. Clarisse comes into Montag's life, and immediately begins to question his relationship with his wife, his career, and his happiness. Also, Clarisse shows Montag how to appreciate the simple things in life. She teaches him to care about other people and