The definition of change is very simply, “to become something else” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Getting a person to change can be as hard as training a lion to become a vegetarian, but many times change is needed, whether it is welcomed or not. In the world that Bradbury created in Fahrenheit 451, change was not simply difficult for people, but it was feared and fought. Few understood the change that society needed go through, and even fewer worked towards that change. As a man whose profession was to put an end to change, it would have been thought impossible for any firefighter in the community to work against the system. This is why Montag’s change in character is so important, and why it required the influence of those around him. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag’s development from a destructive and conformative mindset to one of free thinking is solely because of his interaction with Clarisse, his marriage to Mildred, and his relationship with Faber. Clarisse’s …show more content…
Clarisse was the first person to open Montag’s eyes to the world around him and give him the idea of happiness that he never knew he wanted. Mildred showed Montag how fake the happiness they had truly was and that there had to be more to life than what they were all living. Faber gave Montag the information and the guidance he needed to escape and the become the person he needed to be. All of these people showed him different truths about his life and about the world around him, and it is because of this that Montag changed and began to preserve literature and knowledge by the end of the book. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change