Fahrenheit 451 Character Analysis Essay

In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Montag, the main character begins to question his life when he meets Clarisse. Before his encounter with Clarisse, Montag simply went about his business as a fireman and did as he was told. However, Clarisse challenges Montag to "think" about things, which results in Montag to question his life, his role as a fireman, and the illegality of books. This questioning of who he is and what his society has become separates himself from the norm and his wife, leaving him to be an outcast. Being an outcast, though gives Montag hope and happiness for what is to come for the future.
In Montag’s society one does not think or question what they are being told, just blindly do as told. At the start of the novel, we see Montag fit this mold, and this is shown when he states that he is a firefighter that burns books, and when questioned about it has no answers other than he was told to. However, once he meets Clarisse, a girl who at first frightened Montag with her lack of respect of his authority, she challenges his most ingrained beliefs with her innocent questioning. In a society where reading, driving slowly, or just walking outside alone is outlawed and a conversation is a suspicious event, Clarisse who
does all these things, is truly weird. Clarisse opens Montag’s eyes to the beauties of the natural world making him question of the decisions he has made so far when Clarisse asks him if he is happy. Upon returning home, he realizes that he is not happy after all, and that his appearance of happiness up to this point has been an act. He questions his wife's lifestyle and realizes any significant connection they may have had is lost. Montag does not even remember how he even met his wife. Montag is frightened by Mildred’s pill-taking habits, but not because he truly cares whether she lives or dies. His fear comes from the fact that he doesn’t really love her and is trying to avoid acknowledging that fact. He is moved to tears only when he realizes he would not cry if Mildred overdosed again and died—the true tragedy in his life is the lack of any real feeling. Montag feels that he and his wife are both utterly empty, and blames the walls for distorting Mildred’s brain. He now sees Mildred, his wife, as childish because she does not think about anything other than what is on the media, very unlike Clarisse. Montag begins to start to hate the things that about his life and wife that were previously common in his society, like referring to the people of the interactive TV walls as “family”. Before he started questioning his life he did not even stop to think that those people were not his real family. Now though, he want to have a conversation with his wife like Clarisse does with her family but it is impossible to do with his wife who only cares about her “family”. This causes a separation between his beliefs and his relationships with everyone. He does not believe that any relationship is real, and now questions why he even tolerates people.
When Montag goes back to work with these new ideas he begins to feel alienated from the other firemen. He realizes that all the other firemen look exactly like him, having the same uniform and physical appearance. This observation strengthens Montag’s belief that his society demands that everyone to think and act the same. Thus leaving no one to make any decisions on their own, something he has began believing is important. He used to bet with the other firemen on games of releasing animals for the Hound to catch and kill, but now he just lies in his bunk upstairs and listens every night. He begins to question things no other fireman would ever think of, like why books are burned. When the firemen find the old woman still in her house at the scene of the burning, Montag shows a capacity for compassion that is uncommon in his society. First, he feels highly uncomfortable, since he usually only has to deal with the lifeless books, without human emotions getting involved. Then, though the other men also seem uncomfortable and try to compensate for her silently accusing presence with increased activity and talking, Montag tries to convince her to leave, to save her life but instead she burns alive with her books. Seeing this starts a new curiosity in books, something that is illegal, and steals one book.
Montag’s experience with the old woman really affected him, and he begins to see everything associated with his job as distasteful.
He starts to question why books are illegal if they hold what happened in the past. That is why Montag does the most unorthodox thing in his society, he begins reading books and starts understanding the importance they hold. This new forward thinking, not only separates himself with the rest of society, but also leads Montag to strive for a place that embraces different people and beliefs that drive form books. Montag starts a rebellion and leaves his home to be a part of something that is working on spreading the importance of book and the messages in them. He, and with others, try to rebuild things in a better
way.
Before he began questioning his life, Montag was as he states a “fool”. A fool that did not understand anything and did as told, believing that his actions were correct. However, through being able to see the things that are happening around him objectively he understands a change is needed. Montag is part of that change because they are a Phoenix that will rise from the ashes and one day spread throughout the world.