Fahrenheit451

Fahrenheit 451
Quest Pattern
By Will Palmer
Almost every novel containing a hero figure follows the Hero’s Quest pattern. The Hero’s Quest pattern consists of twelve steps that lead the hero to their eventual goal. Some stories that follow this pattern include The Hobbit, Enders Game, and Star Wars. These are just a few of the thousands of stories that follow the Hero’s Quest pattern. Every story with this pattern starts the hero off in an ordinary world but something is wrong. The hero seeks to solve this conflict and the adventure starts. Fahrenheit 451 is about a man named Guy Montag living in a dystopia. All people do is watch television all day; Nobody is truly happy. In fact there are nine or ten people trying to commit suicide every night! Montag is a firefighter, but not a normal firefighter. The firefighters in this city burn books instead of putting out fires because they were said to create too much controversy and conflict. Over time Montag begins to realize that his city may not be as perfect as everyone thinks. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes of how Guy Montag is called to fight a mindless society through the knowledge found in books in order to find inner truth and understanding.
Montag’s journey begins in a seemingly perfect utopia where everyone is happy. Montag seems to be enjoying his life as well, set in his monotonous life of burning books at work only to return to a wife who would rather spend time with her “TV family” than her husband. This is Montag’s ordinary world. Everyone seems only to be concerned with immediate entertainment rather than lasting relationships or obtaining true happiness because it allows them to escape reality and doesn't require them to think. Everyone is happy the less they think including Montag. “It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed...his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. ” (1) Montag finds pleasure in setting books on fire and doesn't think twice about what he is destroying. Montags way of thinking is about to change however, when he meets his new next door neighbor Clarisse Mcclellan who will call him to adventure with a single question. Montag first encounters Clarisse on his way home from work one warm windy autumn night. Upon introducing themselves Clarisse asks if she can walk home with him and Montag agrees. Clarisse immediately strikes Montag as an odd child when she informs him that she rarely watches TV but instead likes to sit and think about things. The conversation persists until both arrive at their homes. Before scurrying off Clarisse asks Montag one last question. “Are you happy?” (7) This question is Montags call to adventure because it makes him question every aspect of his ordinary world. Montag discovers that although he has everything under the sun he still is not truly happy. The only thing he can think of that is missing is books.Consequently he cannot remain comfortable in his ordinary world knowing that something is missing in his life so he sets out to achieve his goal of obtaining the knowledge held in books.
Montag crosses the first threshold when he fully commits to the quest by showing Mildred the books he has been hiding. By doing this Montag completely leaves his ordinary world. This ultimately leads to the approach to the inmost cave when his own house is called in for housing these books. This stage begins when Montag calls in sick to work after he sees a woman get burned alive trying to protect her books. This causes him to lose all motivation to be a fireman. Montag confesses this to Mildred and decides to reveal his secret. Montag pulls Mildred away from the TV, reaches inside of the air-conditioning unit, and pulls out the books he has been hiding. “He kept moving his hand and dropping books...when he was done he looked down upon some twenty books lying at his wife’s feet.” (63) This is a very important stage because it occurs when Montag overcomes his fear and decides to confront head on a society that outlaws books. This crossing of the first threshold inevitably leads to the approach to the inmost cave when the fire station gets a call in the middle of a card game. The firemen drive out to the address that was called in only to find the house belongs to one of their own, Montag. “‘Something the matter, Montag?’ ‘Why,’ said Montag slowly, ’we’ve stopped in front of my house.’” (106) When the dragon (firetruck) pulls up to Montag’s house he sees Mildred run out carrying a suitcase to a taxi only to speed off never to be seen again. By this time Montag is realizing the gravity of the situation. His own wife has turned him into the authorities, his house is going to be burned down, and he is going to go to jail or die. Montag is approaching the inmost cave; he has come to the edge of a dangerous place. Montag is pausing at the entrance to this place analyzing the situation and weighing his options. Eventually Beatty (Montag’s worst enemy and captain of the fire department) confronts Montag and forces him to burn down his own house. Beatty informs him that the mechanical hound is patrolling for him in case he tries to escape. Beatty also takes Montag’s earpiece that he uses to communicate with Faber (Montag’s mentor) and threatens to trace it back to him and punish him as well. Overwhelmed by the situation Montag turns the flamethrower on Beatty and sends him up in flames.
Montag proceeds to the next stages, his resurrection by surviving the bombing of the city and his return with the elixir of knowledge for rebuilding society. After killing Beatty Montag made a sprint to Faber’s house to inform him he is leaving the city as well as to pick up new clothes to cover his scent so that the mechanical hound cannot trace his smell. Faber gives him some dirty clothes and instructs him to head for the river. On his way to the river Montag tracks the hound by looking into people's parlor windows and seeing the chase on TV. By the time Montag floats down the river and reaches the countryside the police helicopters and hound have already turned around. Following the train tracks he soon stumbles upon five men sitting around a fire. The leader of the men introduces himself as Granger and explains that they too seek the knowledge found in books. As they are sitting under the moonlight watching the stars they hear jets pass over and in an instant the whole city is turned to ash. “Perhaps the bombs were there, and the jets, ten miles, five miles, one mile up, for the merest instant, like grain thrown over the heavens by a great sowing hand, and the bombs drifting with dreadful swiftness, yet sudden slowness, down upon the morning city they had left behind.” (151) The bombs drop and vaporize the city, leaving nothing behind. The dropping of the bombs symbolize Montag being reborn into a more meaningful life. Montag leaves the reality of the city he was trying to escape and enters the world of the countryside with the hobos which seems equally unreal because of how new it is to him. Entering this world leads to the next stage, the return with the elixir. Montag gains two things from meeting the band of hobos. First off he gains the knowledge from Granger that he needs in order to recall the books he has read from memory. This gives Montag’s life purpose knowing that he too is now a holder of knowledge. The second thing he gains is the ability to rebuild society. “There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ, every hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up...and it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did.” (156) Montag and the group of hobos have a rare opportunity to rebuild society. They are determined to not let history repeat itself and not to make the same mistakes in the future. Montag is now able to return to his ordinary world with a new sense of purpose and understanding.
In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury writes of a man seeking inner truth through the knowledge found in books. Montag is called to fight his ordinary world of destroying books. He crosses the first threshold of his quest to preserve the knowledge in books by revealing his own books to his wife. Montag approaches the inmost cave after his wife reports him to the authorities and he is forced to burn his own house down. He eventually escapes the city and joins with a small group of hobos who share in his search for knowledge. Montag and the hobos are resurrected by surviving the bombing of the city and are able to return with the elixir of the knowledge that came from books. Although Bradbury wrote his book in 1951 it foreshadows problems we may experience in modern times. Our government today may not burn books, but it can achieve the functional equivalent by restricting access to books. So, we have to be careful about what we restrict.