Compare And Contrast Fahrenheit 451 And Beatty

The story of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a science fiction novel that took place in the twenty-fourth century. The story of Fahrenheit 451 has two important central characters Guy Montag and Captain Beatty. Although Guy and Beatty are both firemen and more educated than the average person, they are very different on the views they have on books and life and finding happiness.
Montag is a fireman and Beatty is his Captain. Instead of putting out the fires, they start them. They do not want people to gain knowledge or think for themselves. They enforce the law that does not allow people to read books and burn houses that contain them. Captain Beatty states, “We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against." (p 55,56) Montag’s beliefs change after the conservations between him and Clarisse McClellan, his neighbor, who helps him realize the world of books and what they can teach you and help you learn in life. Montag realizes Beatty wants him to have no feelings or thoughts of his own. He doesn’t

Montag sees how shallow and meaningless their society is. He realizes and understands that the more he reads that the people have become robotic and colorless. Beatty seems to like their society and believes it is superior to societies of the past. Montag soon realizes that Beatty is not happy at all and Montag is trying to convince himself that he is happy. Montag says, “Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet, I kept sitting there saying to myself, I'm not happy, I'm not happy.” (p 62) He then realizes that books could teach him and bring value to his life and make it more meaningful and possibly help him find happiness, unlike Beatty who does not believe you can find anything in book, but