Quotation # 5 “He twitched the safety catch on the flame thrower. Beatty glanced instantly at Montag’s fingers and his eyes widened the faintest bit. Montag saw the surprise there and himself glanced to his hands to see what new thing they had done. Thinking back later he could never decide whether the hands or Beatty’s reaction to the hands gave him the final push toward murder. The last rolling thunder of the avalanche stoned down about his ears” (Bradbury, 130-131). Beatty orders Martag to set fire to his own house and then states he is under arrest. Beatty unleashes a tirade of taunts, criticisms, and name-calling toward Montag to add to the effects from his wife’s betrayal. In this extremely tense situation, what will Martag do? In the last sentence of the quote, (“The last rolling thunder of the avalanche stoned down about his ears”) Bradbury captures Martag’s feelings as he pulls the trigger of his flamethrower and incinerates Beatty in a vividly described murder. This whole quote shows both a defining moment in character development and also a significant scene in the plot. By killing Beatty, Montag has taken decisive action against the forces seeking to ban books and for those in favor. He has murdered an enemy of freedom and there is no turning …show more content…
In a conversation with Granger and fellow book preservationists, Montag believes that he has nothing to contribute to their noble effort, but soon is guided by Granger to realize that memorizing Ecclesiastes is a significant contribution. In fact, Granger congratulates Montag on “how important you’ve become in the last minute” to the larger goal of saving the world’s most important writings. Simply by doing his part, even if it was relatively small, Montag has found a very important purpose within a larger group of