The theme of the novel Fahrenheit 451 is the value of knowledge over ignorance, and how the only way you can live your life to the fullest is with that knowledge. This theme is shown through the character development of Guy Montag, as he changes from a complacent man living in a society of superficiality and immediate gratification to someone who understands the world and his place in it.
In the beginning of the novel, the protagonist Guy Montag is the quintessential firefighter, satisfied in burning down the houses where illegal book are hidden. As he watches a house burn down, “Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame” (4 Bradbury). Burning the literature gives Montag satisfaction and joy. He gains pleasure from burning books and taking away the knowledge which comes from them. He blindly follows what society expects from him and doesn’t spare a thought towards why he has been ordered to burn the books. Guy is perfectly content with his
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This all comes to head when he is called to burn a house and the owner refuses to leave. Montag contemplates the burning of the woman, thinking “always before it had been like snuffing a candle. The police went first...so when you arrived you found an empty house. You weren’t hurting anyone, you were hurting things!” (34). Confronting the owner of the house and seeing what she was willing to sacrifice for the books deeply shakes all of Montag’s beliefs about society. It is impossible for him to keep his ignorance any longer, and he finds that he does not want to. Through this first realization, Guy comes to realize that he hates society around him for embracing the superficialness of life instead of looking to what lies underneath. He gains the knowledge to look and think for himself instead of taking things at face value like the rest of his