Brotherhood in Fahrenheit 451

547 Words3 Pages
In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the author Ray Bradbury describes a world in which owing and reading books is illegal. The characters focus on a futuristic life filled with entertainment and immediate gratification. Anyone who has any type of interest in books is considered strange and also a threat to their society Montag tells Granger and the rest that he left his wife back in the city and worries that something must be wrong with him, because he does not miss her and would not be sad if she were killed. Granger tells him a story about the death of his grandfather of how he was, a sculptor. Granger believes that when people change even a small part of the world thoughtfully and deliberately, they leave behind enough of their roots to enable other people to mourn them properly.Granger’s story about his grandfather, with its moral about the importance of leaving one’s mark on the world, resonates with Montag’s desire to leave a meaningful legacy. From the beginning of the novel he has been growing increasingly dissatisfied with a life based on empty pleasures and devoid of real connections to other people. With the help from Granger, Montag now realized that because Mildred hardly ever did anything, he did not miss her. Montag thinks back to Faber’s words, promising him that Montag would be as a brother. That is Montag-plus-Faber, fire plus water which would mix and turn into wine. Bradbury uses religious imagery when Faber describes himself as water and Montag as fire. He claims that merging of fire and water will produce wine. This is religiously significant as Jesus Christ’s transformation of water into wine, which was one of the miracles that proved his identity and brought about the strong faith in people. Montag wants to confirm his own identity through a similar self-transformation. He hopes that when he becomes this new self, he will be able to look back
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