Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, shows how books carry knowledge and people decide what they want to do with the knowledge. Throughout the novel it shows how Montag had ignorance and Fear about family and friends and towards books. Montag’s ignorance and fear towards himself, Mildred, her friends, other firefighters and Beatty; ultimately led him to do the wrong things. Montag’s responsibility as a fireman is to burn books, therefore he is destroying knowledge. The story starts out by books being burned “While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind burned dark with burning” (Bradbury, pgs. 3-4). Montag had the ignorance to be a fireman but still reads book. The fear threatens him because he is a fireman and knows the consequences in reading books. The fear of Montag stealing books frightens him and makes him sick each time he steals them. His other fear is that he will get caught stealing books. He is afraid of the mechanical hounds and they start to treat him differently, therefore he tries to stay away from them as much as possible. The first real fear was when he woke up with chills and fever (Bradley, pg 48) after stealing a book from Mrs. Blake and thinking the mechanical hounds were outside his bedroom window. A wife suppose to trust and stick her husband, Montag is ignorance towards his wife because he lets her in on his secret. He shows her the books and forces her to read them with him. This led to Mildred turning her husband in to the fire station. The second mistake about Montag having ignorance was ready poetry to Mrs. Phelps, Mrs. Bowles and Mildred. This also made them uncomfortable and very sad. This confirmed their belief that books were bad. Montag was taking risk in reading to them and the possibility of being turned in. The relationship between Montag and the coworkers began to draw a thin; he starts to isolate himself from them. He stopped playing pokers with his coworkers, as well as complaining about the mechanical hounds making noise and barking at him. They start to question his behaviors. Montag fears his boss, Beatty. As Mildred phones and tells Beatty that Montag was sick and wouldn’t be coming into work; this started proving Beatty’s suspicions about Montag stealing books. Beatty sends the mechanical hounds to Montag’s house “The Hound, he thought…” (Bradbury, pg 48). This frightens Montag. Beatty notices other changes towards Montag because he becomes distant at work and complains of the mechanical hounds. Montag knows Beatty is knowledgeable about books and had stated previous that he had read may books and he even quotes from those books. This shows Montag’s ignorance because he is no match for Beatty and will eventually get caught. Beatty again draws suspicion and quotes “Truth will come to light. ……Knowledge is power!” (Bradbury, pg 107). This frightens Montag, this again show ignorance and fear with Montag. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury writes and shows you can’t run from knowledge because it is all around us and society. Even when books are burned people still remember them and they will eventually come back. This novel shows even though Montag had ignorance and fear with himself, Mildred, her friends, other firefighters and Beatty; he never stopped what his true belief was and that was having knowledge with books.
CITATION: 1. Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Del Rey, 1991
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