Fahrenheit 451 Beatty Quotes

The choice of what is done with the power of knowledge lies in the hands of the beholder. An advanced society live firemen whose job is to burn any houses that contain books. The protagonist is a fireman, Guy Montag, who loves his job, even begins the story off saying,”It was a pleasure to burn”(1). He lives this destructive lifestyle until one day on his home he encounters Clarisse, a analytic girl who questions him if he really is happy. Her intriguing manner pushes him into not only stealing books from houses in the process of burning them, but also reading them. Once Montag realizes why knowledge is considered a burden, he conspires to frame the firemen. During this process the fire chief, Beatty, discovers what he is doing. This results

Beautty being a far more intelligent person than Montag, uses his intellect harshly to mock a woman whilst burning her house. Beatty ironically quotes a story from the bible, perhaps one of the most well known books, while telling the woman her wrongs. He snarls at the woman ,”You know the law,’ said Beatty. ‘Where’s your common sense? None of those books agree with each other You’ve been locked up here for years with a regular damned Tower of Babel’ “(35). Beatty knows his contradicting choice of words is sardonic and unfair unbeknownst to the other firemen, but still chooses to use it. Montag chooses to immediately share his knowledge of books and tries to make the propagandized friends of his wife understand. His accomplice warns him to not proceed saying how it is not wise to do, yet he insisted. Montag tries to reason and make the women understand, “ Then he began to read in a low stumbling voice that grew firmer and he progressed from line to line… Mrs. Phelps was crying… ‘“Clara what’s wrong?” ‘I-I,’... ‘don’t know, don’t know, I just don’t know…’”(97). Montag tries to scare the women into understanding what the poem he read them means but they cannot seem to comprehend

Beatty lectures Montag trying to scare him uses threatening yet encouraging words woven into the speech to drive him away from the books. He acts concerns for Montag telling him how needed he is, “‘Hold steady. Don’t let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don’t think you realize how important you are, we are, to our happy world as it stands now’”(62). Once it is clear Montag hasn’t listened and is being forced to burn down his house, Beatty now shows him his intellect through encouraging Montag’s rage towards him. He taunts after Montag holds the flamethrower up to him, “‘ Hold a gun on a man and force him to listen to your speech. Speech away. What’ll it be this time? Why don’t you belch Shakespeare at me, you fumbling snob?... Go ahead now, you second-hand literateur, pull the trigger’”(113). Beatty previously stated that they must stop any revolt that is happening and now is telling Montag to kill him. Beatty himself is the one who fears change and would rather die then try to improve the broken world like