Imagine a society designed to stop people from thinking and being unique. A place where people constantly have little music playing devices in their ears and watch television. A tightly controlled society so determined to stay as it is that media is controlled and books are burned. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury imagined all these things and created a story with them. He creates many different characters with very diverse stories, one of them named Beatty. Beatty, a fire chief, is a very clever man and originally seems to be an antagonist. Bradbury shows people are more than what they decide to show when Beatty is revealed to be rather hopeless.
In the first part of the story, “The Hearth and the Salamander,” Beatty appears as a controlling,
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Montag, having had to just burn down his house and books, is holding a flamethrower. When Montag points the flamethrower at Beatty, Beatty’s provocation exhibits how desperate he is for an escape. He taunts “Go ahead now, you second-hand literature, pull the trigger.” and then he “took one step towards Montag.” (55) Beatty knew Montag was near breaking point, and he knew how to tip him over the edge. He is so hopeless, he gave Montag the incitement to end his life. Montag realizes this later on while he is on the run. He begins to understand how desperate Beatty was for an escape. “In the middle of the crying Montag knew it for the truth. Beatty had wanted to die. He had just stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, joking, needling, thought Montag, and the thought was enough to stifle his sobbing and let him pause for air. How strange, strange, to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad, and then ...” (57) Montag comprehends that he did not kill a cruel creature who was a willing slave to his society, but a hopeless human shackled to it. Beatty was willing to do, and did do, whatever he could to break the chains. Through his own last words and Montag’s chilling thoughts, Bradbury conveys Beatty’s utter