Monologue From Fahrenheit 451

The Captain visited today. He had a nice little chat with Montag while I fixed up the room. I found a present behind his back. I tried to ask about it, but he yelled at me like my family does when they argue. So, I went back to the parlor. Who likes talking to other people? Not me. As I sat, fireworks, galaxies, ad men exploded all across the screen. This was real entertainment. The wonderful and familiar sounds of my family surrounded me and took me to pretty places I had never seen or heard of before. In the middle of the first show, Montag came in. He started talking, so I turned my head to look at him, but I wasn’t really listening. He told me about not wanting to go to work. But of course, he was just being silly, as usual. I knew he would
go back soon. If not, I would make him. How else would we pay for our fourth parlor wall? He said something about being unhappy and reading books. So, I told him what any sensible person would tell him. I said, “They’d put you in jail, wouldn’t they?” He walked around and told me more about useless things like his thoughts and how he wasn’t happy.
He got boring real fast, so I told him, “I’m tired of listening to this junk,” and turned to talk to my announcer friend in the parlor. He doesn’t talk about jnk like feelings and thoughts. We only talked about real things like fashion and shows. Suddenly, my announcer friend went mute. His lips fluttered open and shut, but he could not coax his vocal cords to make any noise. I looked at montag, and saw that he was the cause of my friend’s sickness. Montag told me he had something to show me.
“I hope it’s the fourth parlor wall,” I thought.
I walked with him to the front hall to see the nice surprise he had for me. He climbed onto a chair and looked into the air
vent.
“What a silly place to hide a surprise,” I thought, “The vent was dirty and the surprise would be dusty!”
He reached in and took out a colored rectangular prism. He dropped it onto the floor. He repeated this motion as I looked close at the rectangular prism. It had ink and old pieces of yellowing paper in between. I couldn’t believe my eyes! They were books! Old, horrible, disgusting, evil books! Yellowed heaps of old garbage sat on the floor in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t really think. But now it looks as if we’re in this together.”
I backed up slowly in disbelief.
He dared to bring books into my home! He was so selfish, always caring only about himself! Did he think about me? No! If the other firemen or the captain found out about this, I’d lose my parlor, and my family! There was only one thing to do. I had to burn the books. I rushed forward, grabbed a book, and tried to incinerate it, but Guy caught me before I could. I screamed and flailed hysterically, trying to get away from this monster to save my family and my home. He slapped me, and I realized the futility of my efforts. He said some nonsense about reading the books. I slumped to the floor, not wanting to believe this was happening to ME. He spoke more nonsense as I thought about the things we might lose. At that time, the door voice called to me. I was sure it was over, but the person at the front door went away. Guy read a passage from a book. The blood in my head pounded in protest. It WAS
nonsense.
I said, “It doesn’t mean anything! The Captain was right!”
He said, “Here now, we’ll start over again, at the beginning.”
We began to read.