Emma Jaramillo Mrs. Gower English Honors 8 3 March 2023 A Character’s Inevitable Change There are many ways that a person can change. Whether it be from trauma, acting, or simply, time. Like people, characters also change throughout their stories. But the characters that usually change the most are the protagonists. Namely, Montag. From the way that he behaves to his relationships, he changes everything. He starts the novel off by being a book-burning firefighter that loved his life and the people in it. However, after experiencing many changes sparked by hardship, he ends up saving books and leaving the life he adored before. Bradbury’s development of Montag reflects a motif of inevitable change. One way that you can notice a change in …show more content…
He worked with him every day for many years and built up a great amount of trust in him. “Behind him, four men at a card table under a green-lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing. Only the man with the Captain’s hat and the sign of the Phoenix on his hat, at last, curious, his playing cards in his thin hand, talked across the long room” (Bradbury 23). Beatty was the only firefighter that actually appreciated Montag, taking him under his wing. He visited him when he was sick to warn him, tried to help Montag save himself by burning the books, and was always kind to him. But like with Millie, his relationship with Beatty drastically changed throughout the book. “Montag shut his eyes, shouted, shouted, and fought to get his hands and his ears to clamp and to cut away the sound. Beatty flopped over and over and over, and at last, twisted in on himself like a charred wax doll and lay silent” (Bradbury 113). Montag went from trusting Beatty to killing him in his own house. He felt betrayed that he burned his house and his books, depleting his overall trust. Montag’s relationship changes, and betrayals, especially Beatty’s, made him more paranoid about everything, greatly affecting his