“There’s no reason to change.” In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Captain Beatty, the Captain fireman said this quote, but Montag was able to prove him wrong by changing. Prior to this quote, the main character, Guy Montag is a fireman, and his job is to burn books at people’s houses because they are illegal in the society that they live in. He realizes that he is not truly happy with his life and with this society, so he decides to steal books and then read the hidden ones in his house. He becomes a fugitive in the society and has to run away, and eventually, the whole city gets bombed, and Montag is going to help rationalize and bring the ruinous society back to its feet the right way. Ray Bradbury uses the motif of contrasts to portray the theme that human beings are complicated and perplexing and that people are able to change in diverse approaches.
Bradbury demonstrates the theme of this book utilizing the contrast between nature and technology. In this book, the concept of nature is very pertinent which is meant to symbolize the problems in the technological society when Montag says, “It was like a faint drift of greenish luminescent smoke, the motion of a single huge October leaf blowing across the lawn and away. The Hound, he thought. It’s out there tonight. It’s out there now.” (Bradbury 45) Since Montag thought that the stolid, odious mechanical Hound sounded like nature but it was really just technology, this depicts that the leaf symbolizes Montag, who is one of