Character Analysis: Montag In Milgram's Experiment

Yashvi Patel
Mr. Lyle
English 10
5 March 2018
Montag in Milgram’s Experiment
Stanley Milgram’s experiment was conducted to measure the level of obedience in Americans. Montag is a protagonist in Fahrenheit 451. In the beginning, he was shown as a cruel fireman who burns books, but later in the story he realizes the importance of books and tries to fight against his technological society. If Montag was the subject of Milgram’s experiment, he would’ve pushed the button up to 300- 350 volts but not until the point where a person would die because he has a nature of obeying but he would disobey and question once he realizes that he is hurting someone.
“Stanley Milgram is a social psychologist, and when he began his career at Yale University in

Montag is a dynamic character. He is a fireman who burn books. He is 30 years old and has worked as a fireman for 20 years. In the beginning, he had a strong and strict personality but then he met girl name Clarisse, who introduces him to the past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the parlor walls. Montag begins to question everything he has ever known (Bradbury). He starts thinking and steals one book from one of the burning site (Bradbury 34).
His Captain comes to know about it and warns him but he still keeps some books with him. Then his Captain makes him burn his house to ashes. He kills his Captain and a few firemen and runs away from the crime spot. The police tries to search for him but couldn’t find the real Montag so they find a scapegoat and declares they killed ‘Montag’ but Montag is still alive. He escaped from the city successfully (Bradbury 50-158). This shows Montag has kind of a obeying character but when those instructions conflict with his personal moral, he would disobey and do what he feels is

“Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, who is usually an authority figure.”(McLeod). If Montag was the subject of the Milgram’s experiment he would probably stop when the learner starts screaming badly. He would feel bad and get that he shouldn’t do this, leading him to disobey the instructions of the experimenter.
Even though he is a fireman he still have some emotions and caring for living beings. “Montag placed his hand on the woman’s elbow. ‘You can come with me’” (Bradbury 36) This was a place where he went to burn books and the woman decided to burn with the book. Montag tries to convince her to come with him and not to die with her burning books. This shows Montag do have a caring nature when it comes to someone’s life. So Montag would definitely stop before he kills someone with that fatal electric shocks.
Looking at Montag’s character in the book, it proves that he would go upto a high extent but not all the way to the end. Stanley Milgram’s experiment has factors and situations which could affect the level of obedience they receive. According to Stanley Milgram’s experiment, “he quickly found that we are all surprisingly obedient to people in authority” (McLeod). Human nature is really obedient because that’s the only way to run this world in