How Does Montag Change

Creating Change in Society
Adam Braun, an American entrepreneur, said that “For any movement to gain momentum, it must start with a small action.” In the beginning of the novel, Clarisse McClellan, a seventeen year old girl, has recently moved next to Guy Montag, the novel’s protagonist. He first meets her on his way home from his job as a fireman, and Clarisse asks questions about the world, which is unusual in their society, because it 's uncommon to see someone questioning it. She influences Montag to start thinking differently, and he realizes that his life is empty. He turns to books, which are banned in his society. This is discovered by the Captain Beatty, who then causes Montag to be forced to kill him and escape the city. Clarisse’s

He is shaken by their meeting at first but then finds himself considering her ideas about nature and the other fireman, and he begins to think about straying from his society’s ideals. Montag does not fully accept Clarisse at first, saying to her “You think too many things” (9). Montag becomes uneasy because it is the first time his conformist way of thinking and his obedient actions have been challenged. At the end of their first interaction, Clarisse asks whether he is happy or not. After being caught off guard by her question, he hastily responds that he was happy with his life, and afterward thinks that the question was meaningless and silly. After he thinks about it, however, he realizes that the question made him notice that he wasn 't happy at all, and that “he wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on the door and ask for it back” (12). Her question makes him permanently realize that he is unsatisfied with his life because his life is empty and changes his actions and way of thinking forever because of it. After realizing this, he starts to search for enlightenment and stands outside Clarisse’s house, wanting to be accepted by them, even though they are considered an anomaly in their society because Clarisse’s family members interact

. . he opened his mouth and it was Clarisse McClellan saying, ‘didn’t firemen prevent fires rather than stoke them up and keep them going?’“ (34). Montag begins to question the same traditions that Clarisse did earlier, and he even imitates her previous question of what firemen were like in the past. While burning books at an old woman’s house, he makes the transition from wishing to stray from society to breaking their laws. He starts by reading one to two lines.When a book fell open, “Montag had only an instant to read a line, and it blazed in his mind for the next minute as if stamped there with fiery steel” (37). Montag is now completely defying his society by breaking it’s laws by reading. Montag further increases his law breaking by stealing books and storing them in his house. He eventually starts reading to find answers to his empty life when he resorts to finding Faber to help him. They devise a plan Montag sees going against society as the only way out, following in Clarisse’s footsteps in questioning and going against society. Clarisse’s influence on Montag can be fully seen when he becomes an independent thinker himself. He begins to listen and observe the world just as Clarisse had, and actively listens to his surroundings when he thinks “All of this country here. Listen to it!” (141). Montag no longer blocks out the sounds of his world but instead decides to listen. The sounds of the country hold more meaning for him