Conformity In Fahrenheit 451, By Ray Bradbury

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, Montag, who at first conforms to societal standards without question or concern, transforms into a character who deviates from their standards to rebel and question; he discerns that when one diverges from the norm, they can question and rebel. Montags originally conforms completely without doubt or question. He learns from the books and begins to doubt and question the ideals he once upheld. Upon his choice to rebel against the dystopia, Montag escalates the impact and size of his personal rebellions. The realization that he is a mirror image of the ideologies imposed upon himself and the citizens prompts a vindictive mutiny against the oppressive government. As the novel begins, Montag upholds

Montag’s first major act rebellion occurs as he burns an old woman with the books she had collected. Montag is uncertain of why he “plunged the book back under his arm” (pg 35) and stole it. He claims that his hand had acted of its own accord; in reality, Montag stole the book as a subconscious act of rebellion against the standards forced upon him. After reading the book, he questions even further; his acts of rebellion grow larger and more public. Montag’s defiance and disobedience of the norm inciting him to, in a fit of anger, read a poem aloud to Mildred and her friends. He says his voice “went out across the desert...and around the women there in the great hot emptiness.” (pg 96) The desert and its metaphorical heat once again convey the blazing and intense revolt caused by Montag’s new ideology. The problems he sees caused by the conformist society, motivate him to grow even larger in his revolution. During the burning of his own house, Montag expresses that he could never decide “whether the hands or Beatty’s reaction to the hands gave him the final push towards murder” (pg 113). In Montag’s final act of public rebellion he destroys his home, a symbol of the conformity imposed on him by the society he once believed in. Beatty’s murder is a symbolic end to the hold Montag’s original ideologies had on him; not only does the act of homicide end Montag’s conformity but it is the beginning of his new and distinctive personality. Montag’s rebellion is the final separation between himself and his obedience to a controlling