How Is Guy Montag's Destruction Shown In Fahrenheit 451

It was a pleasure to burn” (Bradbury, 1). Have you ever heard someone that actually liked to burn other people’s possessions? Or maybe burning something valuable to your or maybe even the society? In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, this is the case. In this book, the society in which the main character , Guy Montag, lives in, is a dystopia of knowledge ,violence, fear , and much more. Our society would never do that, right? Or would we? Although we may seem ever so diverse to this society of Guy Montag, we both are much alike yet diverse from each other.

In Fahrenheit 451, many people react to the violence around them and the fear that is created around them. In the book, firemen burn books, houses, and yes-even people, to “protect” the city.

According to Mildred’s friends, Mrs.Phelps and Mrs.Bowles, tells us , “ No one in his right mind, the Good Lord knows, would have children! … No use of going through all that agony for a baby” (Bradbury 92). Both women know their society all too well. Children create agony because of birth and they can even cause destruction amongst themselves. Even though some of the people may cause destruction, other will run in fear. Similar to Mildred she even runs away in fear of the fireman. Montag sees her , “...shoved her valise into the waiting beetle ,climbed in, and sat mumbling , ‘...oh everything gone,everything gone now” (Bradbury 108). Mildred was afraid of the “protection” of the firemen. She ran away in order to keep herself safe. She was running away from her fear of the firemen’s

In the book’s society, they limit their power to an extreme. An example of their limitation is not letting children know their proper history. According to the firemen, “First Firemen: Benjamin Franklin” (Bradbury 32). We all know that Benjamin Franklin was definitely not the first firemen. Throughout the entire book, the firemen burn books. In our society, firemen put out burning fires instead of starting fires. Thence forth, “firemen” are not people who save people, but people who will kill others just because they need the power to limit people on their knowledge. The society limits knowledge because they want control. They want to control their society by burning the books which are full of resourceful knowledge. Even though, we may think our society does not limit our knowledge. But, we do have restricted or banned books, Even in school, students are not allowed to read certain books because of content of the knowledge of the book. Henceforth, we ban books from the public to save information that they do not want us to know. But, we are somewhat different. We do not burn any books. We allow many children and many adults to read for their own interest and knowledge to grow, learn, etc. As seen in both societies though, we both limit by either banning books or burning