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How Does Montag Change In Fahrenheit 451

616 Words3 Pages

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 …show more content…

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

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Over the course of Fahrenheit 451, the main character Guy Montag is characterized, but is shown to change. In part 1, the book establishes how he initially acts and how he starts to change. In part 2, the reader sees how his personal experience shapes him into taking drastic actions. In part 3, the reader sees the effects of his actions further his character until he reaches his full potential as a character. Readers recognize Montag’s development as a character throughout the novel by means of personal experience, important events, and influential characters.

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In the book “Fahrenheit 451”, Guy Montag is a firefighter who doesn’t stop fires, but starts them. When books are found in someone’s house, the firefighters rush in and burn it all down. But when a peculiar girl named Clarisse McClellan moves in next door, Montag starts to wonder about the world around him. Two of the many things that change in Montag’s life are he sees the world’s natural details and is trying to skip work as much as he can.

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At the outset, Montag was consumed by the darkness. He was a fireman who started fires instead of dousing them. Asked how long he has done so. He replies, “since I was twenty, 10 years ago.” (5) All the time he was, burning book after book, not knowing the full extent of his actions; he was totally unaware of all the knowledge being destroyed at his hand.

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733 Words | 3 Pages

In this part of the book, all of the firemen including Montag received a call to burn a house with the books in there. Here became the turning point for Montag as he saw the woman, who already had made her decision to die rather than live in a world of oppression and restricted freedom of thought which books symbolize in this part, burns with the illegal books in the burning house, refusing to go out without the assurance of the safety of the books. We can suppose that his perception is gradually changing through the phrase showing that Montag felt a huge guilt over this, unlike the other firemen or Beatty. Furthermore, during the conversation with his wife, Mildred, Montag says, “We burn a thousand books. We burnt a woman.

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880 Words | 4 Pages

In the book Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag a fireman that burns books, goes through some rough times trying to find happiness in his life. He gets awaken to this idea when he meets a girl named Clarisse who asks him question and makes him question his happiness and love. Then again through all of this thinking he starts to find himself getting curios and starts to take books from houses that need to be burned for having them. Although Montag can be seen as a murder he is justified in killing Beatty, the fireman chief, because Montag is curious and tired of kids not knowing what really happened throughout history, as well as how Beatty treats him throughout the book. In the end Montag killing Beatty was a helpful act for society itself.

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594 Words | 3 Pages

During the second part of Fahrenheit 451, Montag and Millie begin to peruse the stolen books Montag has acquired. As Montag reads, he begins to understand what Clarisse meant when she said that she knew the way life is supposed to be experienced. He laments Mildred’s suicide attempt, Clarisse’s death, the woman who burned herself, and looming war upon the country. Montag begins to see the truth in the books; how they may be the solution to save society from its own destruction. However, he does not completely understand them and needs help in order to do so.

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1091 Words | 5 Pages

He thought that even though we have everything we need to be happy, but without being able to think for ourselves, we’re not truly happy. Right then, a new door reveals itself to Montag. In part three of ​Fahrenheit 451, Montag realizes that he is putting himself and Mildred in danger by returning a book to Beatty in order to trick him. After all, Beatty knows that Montag have books and he already hints that Montag have 24 hours to burn them or the firemen will come to Montag’s house and burn them for him.

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736 Words | 3 Pages

Montag does not like the lifestyle he is living, destroying people's passion of reading books and destroying society and the world around them. Montag disagrees with the governments laws and believes that books can be helpful and full of knowledge. The firemen are ruining the world as we know it, influencing people to not own books, even going as far as killing the people if they have to. One of the reasons the

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The book follows Guy Montag, a fireman who sets things on fire instead of put out fires. He enjoys his job until on one job an old woman decides to burn with her books rather than evacuate. Haunted by her death, Montag becomes confused on why books would mean so much to anyone. He then decides to find out for himself by reading books from a personal stash of stolen books. Montag has a personal revolution; he realizes the dangers of restricting information and intellectual thought.

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535 Words | 3 Pages

Firstly, Montag stole a book to try and discover what he is missing not reading them. Clarisse at random asked Montag if he was happy, and it had never came across to Montag if he was happy. People in their society really didn't feel at all. The old woman that had rather die with her books than give them up, began to make Montag curious on why they were so special. He began to question every aspect in his life, when he does, Mildred tells Montag he should have thought before becoming a fireman.

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999 Words | 4 Pages

Montag lives with his wife, Mildred, and works as a fireman who burns books along with the houses that they belong to. For Montag, burning books was a pleasure and he convinces himself that he loves his job. But Montag’s character developed more as the story continued on. Events that caused a change in Montag’s personality was when he first talked with Clarisse, when he saw Mildred attempting suicide, when he stole a book while burning a house, when Montag goes to see Faber, and when Montag sees a woman kill herself along with her books.

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848 Words | 4 Pages

Following the job where Montag witnesses a woman being so devoted to her books that she would rather burn with them than escape, Clarisse suddenly disappears. This ignites Montag’s desire to discover why literature is so important. Then, he meets with a previously known man, Faber, who teaches him how to understand literature and apply it. Montag hides books in his house, his wife calls in to report her husband, and he is forced to burn his own house to ashes. Before Montag is arrested, he murders his own captain, Beatty, in escaping arrest.

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1764 Words | 8 Pages

In this future society, books are illegal to read and even have possession of them. Firefighters are the special forces in charge of destroying them. After Montag finds a book and falls in love with reading, he begins to steal books from their burning sites and hoard them in secret spots in his house.

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629 Words | 3 Pages

Through out the book F451, Montag changes in the book and becomes more aware of his surroundings than he was in the beginning of the novel. Through out the book, events occur that change his mind about burning. The theme of the story is knowledge is what is important to his society and without it, they would be no different from one another. When Montag meets a young girl named Clarisse, who tells him the wonders of the world and what life used to be like (and should be like) in his society.

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515 Words | 3 Pages

    To begin, the rising action of Fahrenheit 451 includes Montag’s internal conflict. This internal conflict initiates doubt in Montag. When Clarisse asks Montag “‘Are you happy?’”, he initially responds “Of course I’m happy” (Bradbury 7-8). However, it is evident that doubt has been planted in his mind, “What does she think? I’m not?”

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