The fourth stage that showed the similarity between Montag and the prisoner is when they were aghast when they saw their previous life in the greatest depiction possible, so shocked that they tried to return to their previous life. After reading some of the books he had hidden away, Montag decided to pay Faber a visit. Faber was a former English professor who still managed to remember society before the censorship arose. Faber shocked Montag by telling him one reason why the society today does not like books. Faber said, “So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. […] We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. […] Yet …show more content…
Similarly, the prisoner was horrified when he saw the actual fire. The prisoner was so blinded that he refused to continue on and even tried to return to his former spot. Plato wrote, “And he were made to look directly at the light of the fire, it would hurt his eyes and he would turn back and retreat to things he could see properly” (Plato 2). These quotes here show the reactions of the two characters when faced with the truth. Montag was not prepared for the reaction Faber gave him. The quote surprised Montag that he began to reconsider the entire process and just return to being a fireman. The prisoner was also surprised at the greatness of the fire. His eyes were immediately hurt and blinded by the great impact of the fire, causing him to quickly dash back to his original spot. That shows that when an ignorant human sees the actual truth, the impact would cause major ripples …show more content…
Montag, Granger, and the other intellectuals were walking downstream. Montag suddenly realized something. “He was looking for brightness, a resolve, a triumph over tomorrow that hardly seemed to be there. Perhaps he had expected their faces to burn and glitter […] But all the light had come from the campfire […] They were not at all certain that the things they carried in their heads might make every future dawn glow with a purer light, they were sure of nothing save that the books were on file […] the books were waiting, with their pages uncut, for the customers who might come by in later years, some with clean and some with dirty fingers” (Bradbury 154-155). Similar to Montag, the prisoner was enlightened when he saw the sun for the very first time. Plato wrote, “The thing he would be able to do last would be to look directly at the sun itself, and gaze at it without using reflections […] but as it is itself. […] Later on he would come to the conclusion that it is the sun that produces that changing seasons and years and controls everything in the visible and is in a sense responsible for everything that he […] used to see” (Plato 3). For their entire lives, both characters were living in an ignorant, monotonous world. For the first time, they saw the truth of life and how they can influence other people. Montag realized