Guy Montag: An ex-fire fighter, but still a good person. Fahrenheit 451. The temperature that paper catches fire and starts to burn. The main character of the book, Guy Montag, burns books for a living. Later on in the book, he realizes there is more to life than just burning books.
Name Teacher Class Date Fahrenheit 451 Essay Burning Books The title Fahrenheit 451, the temperature at which books burn, strongly depicts the meaning and illustration of this novel. All it took was one flick of a match and the kerosene swallows the house full of hidden knowledge. The houses that suffered through the consuming fire smolder for days, but Montag’s heart would smolder for the rest of his life. The number on Montag’s helmet, 451, not only symbolized books burning, but also stood for the destruction of wisdom. Montag realized he was not just burning the books but also the author, and the author’s knowledge behind each one.
In the novel, the salamander is the name of their fire trucks, and one of the firemen’s symbols on their uniforms, “But he knew his mouth had only moved to say hello, and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm and the phoenix-disc on his chest, he spoke again” (4). These two symbols are very important for Montag’s view of fire since it shows him how fire can not only have a destructive use but also a helpful controlled use. The phoenix is a symbol for renewal, for life that follows death in a cleansing fire. A phoenix is a mythical bird that, at the end of its five-hundred-year existence, it perches on its nest of spices and sings until sunlight ignites the masses. After the body is consumed in flames, a worm emerges and develops into
Fahrenheit 451: Montag’s Change Fire plays a very important and complicated role in Fahrenheit 451. The Phoenix, bird of fire, comes at the end of the book as a symbol of renewal. Granger believes that citizens in the book are much like the Phoenix: they are doing the same things everyday just like Phoenix burns itself, but is born all over again. In the novel, fire symbolizes destruction, but also change, and renewal, so it is considered as a bad and a good thing. Though all the people around Montag have a huge impact on him to change his point of view, it is Clarisse who changes him the most, even more than Faber.
But he continued on, trying to forget. Not allowing his friends death to get the best of him, Montag tore himself from any feelings of sadness. Montag hadn’t known how to think before Clarisse. But he showed strength by moving forward. “She’s gone now, I think, dead.
The main character Guy Montag is known as a “firefighter”, but instead of putting out fires he starts them. His job is to burn any and all books that are found and in doing so prevent the people of the world from developing any real ideas for themselves. Montag has three relationships that help in his personal transformation; this includes Clarisse, Mildred and Faber. These three characters aide him in many ways and help him to make a discovery in which he becomes an individual. This novel allows the reader to realize how important interpersonal communication is to society, without it there is no room to develop meaningful relationships or new outlooks on life as we
This puts Montag in the position to try bringing books back into society. This is brave of him because it isn’t something anyone else would try to do. Since books are illegal, Montag is taking a step out and doing his own thing, instead of staying in the background and letting whatever happens, happen. Also, when Montag and his new group of book people set off for the city to help people survive after the bomb was set off, it took a great deal of bravery for him. Granger tells Montag that he is nothing and he isn’t important.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury teaches that the voice of a people cannot be quieted or controlled. There will always be those that will stand up to authority even in the face of grave danger. Bradbury’s use of fire throughout the novel symbolizes the protagonist’s, Montag, journey of enlightenment, from its ability to take as much as it can be used to give. In the beginning of the novel Montag sees the world like everyone at that time. Fire was meant to strike fear in the hearts of people, but yet Montag says “it was a pleasure to burn.” He didn’t understand what the consequences of him burning the books had, and neither did the rest of the world.
The Great London Fires were a conflagration, which is when a large section or area burns uncontrolled. Once a Fire gets so big, then there is nothing anyone can do, but try to contain it to a certain area. That is when Fire Departments were started by the government in London, after the Great London Fire. Before that you only had Fire Protection from the insurance companies. If you didn’t have the proper decal on your house, the Fire Department would just let it burn.
I highly doubt cigarette ads have anything to do with this act, as he only reads children’s books: instead, he is simply mimicking the actions of my relatives who smoke. Of course, my parents chastise his actions and he then understands the act is wrong, for him at least. With this example in mind, maybe what the government needs to do is concentrate more on education and awareness of the dangers of smoking tobacco. Glasser himself states education, not censorship, is the true way to handle the tobacco