How Does Montag Change In Fahrenheit 451

Although the old Montag could only find pleasure in erasing the past, the influence of Clarisse changes his view of who he is from that of a fireman, who only destroys, to an asbestos-weaver who stops fires. Only then does Montag’s quest for the preservation of knowledge of the past begin. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag learns that changes to his self-perception are essential in order to regain the once lost memories and ideals of the past. When Montag believes that his wife, Mildred, is dead, he stops thinking of himself as a failure and he is able to remember where they first met. After successfully escaping from the city, Montag meets the bookkeepers. When Montag learns of the bookkeepers, plan to set the city on fire, he feels sorry for his

He comes to the conclusion that nothing is constant except the forward motion of time, that changes or burns everything it touches. However, some parts of the past can be saved when someone does “the saving and keeping one way or another, in books in records, in people’s heads anyway at all so long as it was safe, free from … men with matches” (134). Montag decides that he will take on the role of the guardian of knowledge, shielding it from the threat the firemen pose to its preservation. Now Montag realizes he has the power to decide whether or not books are burned. Later Montag meets philosophers in the woods with a radical agenda to reshape the world into one that pays attention to the knowledge books provide. With their help he hopes to make “every future dawn glow with a purer light” (148). The bookkeepers want to use knowledge and books bring back the forward thinking of the past that came from builders who made brilliant skyscrapers and others. Instead of a society where people disregard knowledge and are mindlessly locked in their TV screens, the type of society Beatty tried to keep Montag trapped in. Had Montag’s perception of the power that