C-U-R-I-O-S-I-T-Y
Imagine living in a society where life is routine and mundane, books are banned, and a desire for knowledge is unaccepted. Here authority is not to be questioned. What would you do? In Ray Bradbury’s book, Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist, Guy Montag, is a dedicated man who takes extreme pride in his job as fireman, igniting fires and burning books. However, after meeting an outgoing, 17 year old girl, he begins to change. Guy Montag progresses along with the story. He begins to question both the government, as well as society, with its harsh and rigid ways.
This novel is set in the twenty-fourth century, where firemen no longer fight fires, but instead ignite them. Their job is to burn books as knowledge is unwelcomed. Books are outlawed in this society and are replaced with parlor walls, an interactive media family which eliminates human interaction with the viewer’s real family. In the beginning, Guy Montag takes pleasure in his job as society expected. He sees no wrong in burning books. “it was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see
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Fire Captain Beatty drives the firetruck to the location. Suddenly, Montag realizes it’s his own house. His secret has been discovered! Montag is forced to set fire to his own home, however, he is unphased. Montag realizes that for change to occur, he must change the unchangeable – Beatty. With that, Montag turns the firehose on Beatty and burns him to black ash. As Guy Montag floats down the river to escape his crime, he realizes that he has escaped the controlled society and is a free man. Drifting to shore, he suddenly finds himself with a group of men sitting by a fire. These former scholars were now outcasts due to their undying commitment to books. Montag sees the possibility. Perhaps together, he and the group of outcastrs can restore the respect of the books and knowledge within them with the promise of better things to
Montag has grown to be a smarter and a more thoughtful person. He used to be like everyone else. Unaware, dumbed down, dull, and not being able to think to the best of his ability. The government likes to keep it that way. They allow for no progressive and interesting thoughts from the citizens. That all changed when Montag met Clarisse. The odd one out that made him understand what he could really be capable of and what books could be for humanity. He started going to work, noticing what was really happening. In other words, he changed for the better. As he continues to act more “strange” then the rest of his society, they start to see him as weird and confusing. Montag goes home and yells at Mildred and her friends. “Maybe the books can get
Imagine living in a society with no books? Pages in flames, knowledge taken away? As we travel through time, humans get smarter and smarter and technology becomes more advanced. Many say it is beneficial but in this story there's a whole different side. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, author Ray Bradbury illustrates the idea that censorship and family has become too much of an issue. This becomes clear to readers when families are splitting apart easily, don't care if they die anymore, and finally, blocking the right to learn in their society. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman, but not your typical one. He and his firemen team burn books or knowledge around the area, but he always wondered what is behind those pages. He soon met a 17 year old girl that he talked to for a while and that changed his thinking.After speaking with her and a professor friend, he decided to change the way he thought about life.
Even though Montag’s role as a fireman is to burn books, he develops a desire to
In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag’s evolution as a character shows that in order for something to change, something has to be destroyed. At first, Guy meets a girl who motivates him to change. He begins to slowly transform and the transformation is not complete until the old Guy dies. Through this process, he works with someone who inspires him to change to change society. Over the course of the novel, Guy changes dramatically, going from someone who is ignorant to someone who can think by himself.
“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 (7).
In a society preserved by destruction, fire was thought to be the answer. Guy Montag, one of many firemen, participated in this so called “preservation”. Books were considered abominations. Reading provoked thought, and thought led to reality and unhappiness. The solution was to burn everything. Burn the books, burn the houses, burn the foundations of life! Guy went along with this, led his boring life, took the boring walks to and from his work, and afterwards came home to his boring wife Mildred. She, like many others, was consumed by her television “families”. All was thought to be well until one day he stumbled across Clarisse, a curious girl in his incurious world. She awakened his mind and senses. Changed by her, he works to preserve
As the novel goes on, the meaning of fire changes. Montag rebels against the harsh and controlling government, which turns the fire against him into a means of destruction. Montag watches the transformation of his cruel society burn in front of
Imagine living in a black and white world where all your thoughts, the way you speak and our daily routine are controlled by someone else. In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag starts to question the intentions of his own government after meeting Clarisse McLellan. Ray Bradbury explores the different forms of censorship through Montag’s wife, Mildred, the burning of books, and technology, in order to show there are consequences to censorship.
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.
Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to burn books. Essentially, guy’s job is to start fires supposed to put them out. Books are against the law in futuristic USA, and have been replaced by wall size TV sets. Books were made illegal because they would provoke thought that would cause disagreements and they also offend the readers. Over time, books were revised to make them shorter. Eventually, the books were revised so much that the “books” were 1 page long. Later on, the government concluded that it is best if books no longer exist. Homes were constructed to be fireproof, and the fireman's job was changed to burn the
Guy Montag is a fireman, not the one that puts out fire and saves people he does the opposite he burns stuff, not any stuff they burn something that has to mean in their society, for Montag " it was a pleasure to burn" ( page 3) it means that he enjoyed watching the books burn. One night he was walking home from home he met Clarisse his new neighbor they start a conversation and Clarisse is question Montag "why books are banned and why firemen burn the books" (page 8), Clarisse also asks if " long ago did firemen put fires out instead of going to start them?" (page 8) Montag replied that was nonsense and told her that " the houses has always been fireproof "(page 8). Right before Clarisse leaves she ask, Montag, a question "are you happy" (page 10).
As the plot presented itself, fire did also. Fire was used as a solution to get rid of society’s ills. Ills in this society include nonconformity, overflow in wisdom and knowledge, and government doubt or mistrust. They all derived from one common factor: books. Beatty claimed that without books “…all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door” (28). Books were the greatest evil, because it places ideas of controversy and critical thinking into the minds of readers. Explaining to Montag the quick fix to the trouble of books, Beatty said, “And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind…” (28). As these issues became more and more prominent with time, something to subdue or suppress them was needed. Fire was the answer. So, in their noble position as firemen, Montag and his coworkers destroyed any detected books with fire immediately. This way, residents cannot read them and implant radical ideas. The
We meet Guy Montag, a Fireman, who burns books in a futuristic and dystopian American society. The Central problem is Montag’s Man vs Society conflict in which he battles against an oppressive society.
As stated in the story, Guy Montag is a fireman who burns all books existing. His actions at the beginning of the story shows how Montag instead of feeling misery getting rid of boos, he feels pleasure. This shows how might characters think of Montag as a bad person or a good person doing a good thing. Bradbury writes, “It was a special pleasure to burn. It was a pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed” (3). This comes to show how Montag enjoys his job. It demonstrates how the narrator is describing him as an uncaring selfish person doing what he loves to do. Moreover, a special character named Clarisse built off a close relationship to Monag and got to know him well. Clarisse knew what Montag lived off of and did not seem to