Fahrenheit 451 Essay

Guy Montag is walking on dry and lifeless grass, the river far down, and the city he just left was even farther. He faced realizations as he walked with The Wanderers, the old souls of their society, and it was at this moment he knew. Montag knew who he was because he left his old character in the city behind him that he watched get destroyed. Finding out who he truly was would’ve been difficult if he didn’t have such progressive help from Mildred -- his wife, Clarisse -- his teenage neighbor, and even the old lady who died for forbidden knowledge. The obvious truth is that Montag never knew who he was, he was sculpted by the hands of the society he grew in, he never bothered wondering any possibilities or questioning any of the rules because he never knew there was anything more. It was the creeping curiosity and the too-deep thinking that was prompted by the ladies that finally led him to think, Am I really, me?

At the beginning of Fahrenheit 451, Montag has no care for books, in fact, his job is to destroy books and their banned knowledge. Montag doesn’t ponder on anything or think about something for too long because he always knew he had no reason to. When Clarisse McClellan barges into his life with what-if’s and did-you-know’s, then that’s when Montag truly starts to form...a curiosity, that is. Clarisse points out Montag by saying,“‘You laugh when I haven’t been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what I ask you.’” (Bradbury 6). This shows that before even meeting her, and even when meeting her for the first time, he never was a thinker -- he didn’t know why either, he was just raised like that and grew accustomed to never using too much of his head. Montag realizes Clarisse isn’t like the rest when she says,“‘So I’ve lots of time for crazy thoughts, I guess...Did you know that once billboards were only twenty feet long? But cars started rushing by so quickly they had to stretch the advertising out so it would last.’” (Bradbury 7). This is one of Montag’s first sparks, here he realizes that Clarisse does ponder on things, he finds it strange that this sixteen-year-old girl is telling him about facts that he didn’t know because he never cared to learn. Montag learns to be more open about his thinking, he starts wondering about how things are and contemplating why they are that way -- this is the beginning of his revolution.

Guy Montag is not in love with Mildred. He realizes this when he starts to see that she is a negative weight on him, she shows him how everyone around him is all the same -- careless and self-centered. Mildred tried to overdose herself one night and plays it off as if nothing happened, this makes Montag notice, “And suddenly she was so strange he couldn’t believe he knew her at all.” (Bradbury 39). Once upon a time, Montag had loved a woman, but now she feels so distant and foreign to him, he doesn’t know her at all. It’s all the wondering that he's been doing, all the late-night thinking and the in-depth self-awareness moments that make Montag conjure up the realization that Mildred isn’t a good part of him anymore. He starts to process the fact that Mildred doesn’t know much, she doesn’t know much of anything at all! “‘They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes! I don’t hear those idiot bastards in your parlor talking about it. God, Millie, don’t you see?’” (Bradbury 70). Montag sees that compared to Mildred, he’s the only one thinking. He’s different from them all. This signifies that Montag has finally started to see the true way things are around him, even starts to develop the true version of himself.

Being a firefighter, Montag witnesses an old lady drown her house in flames to die with the knowledge stored in her sacred books, and it takes the heaviest toll on Montag and his actions. Montag sees, “The woman on the porch reached out with contempt for them all, and struck the kitchen match against the railing.” (Bradbury 37). This replays in Montag’s head for days, making him say and do things he would’ve never thought to do -- including stealing and reading a book. Before Montag had time to process what he had done, “..Now, it plunged the book back under his arm, pressed it tight to sweating armpit, rushed out empty, with a magician's flourish! Look here! Innocent! Look!” (Bradbury 35). Guy Montag had stolen a book. He coursed through pages with caution, trying to understand what in the world the pages were trying to tell him. Here, he realizes that he enjoys it. He enjoys the way his mind’s gears turn and speed up with the curiosity coursing through his veins. Montag doesn’t do it because he wants to break the rules, no matter how much he convinces himself it’s just that -- no, he does it to learn.

Fahrenheit 451’s protagonist, Guy Montag, isn’t who he thought he was. He wasn’t what society made him and he wasn’t who he grew up to be. Every small change that he faced throughout all those pages was what led him to be the person he was in the end. As he thought about all the deaths and how he didn’t care, how he thought about what he gave to the city and what the city gave back -- it was all nothing. Montag felt nothing about the past because he realized none of it mattered, what mattered now was who he was going to become. Montag grew from the fires of the city like a Phoenix, he was not a careless book burner anymore, but now a curious learner.