Montag’s Internal and External Conflicts People sometimes have a great effect on other people, even if they do not realize it. That is what happens to Guy Montag, a main character in Ray Bradbury’s science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. In the novel he comes across many characters that change him. In the novel Ray Bradbury uses conflict to show the knowledge and ignorance in the characters. Ray Bradbury uses Montag’s internal and external conflict throughout the book to show how he is changed by these things.
To begin, the rising action of Fahrenheit 451 includes Montag’s internal conflict. This internal conflict initiates doubt in Montag. When Clarisse asks Montag “‘Are you happy?’”, he initially responds “Of course I’m happy” (Bradbury 7-8). However, it is evident that doubt has been planted in his mind, “What does she think? I’m not?”
In this powerful novel science fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, explorer technology and lack of knowledge in a society, Montag is forced to face his society alone. Not the only one in his city, but the only one who stood up to something he was around his whole life. The reader will experience Montag’s journey to change the thoughts of his people. Characterization in the story can show the reader how the characters have developed over time. In the beginning of the book, Montag is seen doing what he was suppose to do.
In stories, a character can be influenced by many things. In Bradbury’s, Fahrenheit 451, Montag meets new people, and finds out new things about people whom he already knows. Along the way, the people he interacts with influences his choices and actions; including Clarisse, Mildred, and Faber. Frequently, Clarisse influences Montag’s choices and actions. In the beginning of the book, she influences Montag by making him realize that he is not happy with his life, by asking him the simple question, “Are you happy?”
16. Montag feels horrible for what he did, it made him very uncomfortable. He wanted to be able to read, think and to find the hidden truth. He didn’t want to be a fireman who starts fires anymore; he doesn’t want to continue killing the authors. 17.
In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Montag, the protagonist and book burner, battles between the light and dark sides of society, first with Beatty, his boss, and the government and then with Clarisse, a neighbor girl and Faber, an English professor. Montag is stuck in the dark burning books and is ignorant to the world around him. He moves towards greater awareness when he meets Clarisse and is awakened to the wonders of deep thought and books. Finally, he risks his life by trying to save the books.
In Fahrenheit 451, depression caused Guy Montag to become irrational. Ray Bradbury who is the author of Fahrenheit 451 simulated a world, where depression causes Guy Montag to choose irrational actions. Ray Bradbury shows the reader the importance of depression by creating a character named Guy Montag, who begins to question everything he has ever known, and slowly sinks into a depression. At first Guy Montag thinks that he's a happy man, an ordinary man with an ordinary job. Everyday is the same for him, except for one day in particular, when he meets Clarisse McClellan.
He is always following others' rules and he never has a chance to decide and act based on his own ideas and moral standards. In most occasions, Montag is just a reflection of people's expectations. Montag's job consisted of setting fires (which is very ironic) and burning books because knowledge was considered a threat to the higher authorities. In his community people never had time to appreciate the little things around them; their lives were driven by technology and entertainment. However, one day he met a girl named Clarisse, she made Montag realize that he was not happy and that things in his community were not right.
Montag quickly begins to understand how ignorant he has been of his own thoughts and desires. He realizes that he did not become a fireman out of personal desire, but rather he “ran after” his father and grandfather, both fireman, “in [his] sleep” (Bradbury 51). “In his sleep” suggests that there was no conscious thought involved when he pursued his career, as if the decision was made by his body without his consent. Montag’s realization that he chose his path out of obligation, rather than personal desire, helps him come to the realization that his ignorance regarding his own thoughts and feelings caused his
“While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning” (Bradbury, Ray 3). Montag is a fireman that does not put out fires, he starts them. Montag lives in a dystopian society where books are illegal to have and read. Books make people think and question things which can give them opposite sides to choose from which can make people become unhappy and worried.
He was moving from an unreality that was unreal because it was new”, (Bradbury 140). This shows that Montag finally found out for himself, what those books said and he stopped burning books because of it. The way it describes of how he feels after he escapes that world, he finally sees reality and knows what things are, rather than being
In this part of the book, all of the firemen including Montag received a call to burn a house with the books in there. Here became the turning point for Montag as he saw the woman, who already had made her decision to die rather than live in a world of oppression and restricted freedom of thought which books symbolize in this part, burns with the illegal books in the burning house, refusing to go out without the assurance of the safety of the books. We can suppose that his perception is gradually changing through the phrase showing that Montag felt a huge guilt over this, unlike the other firemen or Beatty. Furthermore, during the conversation with his wife, Mildred, Montag says, “We burn a thousand books. We burnt a woman.
Is there a pleasure to burn? Guy Montag has lived a quiet life as a fireman, burning books alongside the rest of the fire squad, and has always found his work to be pleasurable (Bradbury 3). Montag takes pride in his work, and finds it empowering, saying, “his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning;” (Bradbury 3). A chance meeting a young girl named Clarisse, and the actions of a martyr willing to die for her books, light a spark in Montag that definitely wasn’t there before. Montag tells Clarisse that he has been a fireman for ten years, and never put much thought into his job.
Montag flees his capture and stops at Faber’s during his escape. At Faber’s, he learns that he is being tracked by a mechanical hound with the whole world to watch at their television screens. Before departing Faber’s house, they both agree to meet in St. Louis where they will work with a printer to print more books. The novel comes to a resolution when Montag successfully avoids capture by traveling down the river toward the railroad tracks. At the railroad tracks, Montag meets a group of scholars that have the same hopes of lifting the censorship of literacy.
1. Summary: In this section of Fahrenheit 451, many interesting things happened. Montag kept bringing up Clarisse and what made her special. Mildred did not want to talk about Clarisse because she was dead and wanted to talk about someone who was alive. Montag wanted to learn why he was reading books and the purpose of them.