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You're Not Important. You're Not Anything: What Does Granger Mean?

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You're Not Important. You're Not Anything: What Does Granger Mean?
You’re not important. You’re not anything.” Granger is talking about how utterly insignificant Montag, and all human beings for that matter, are in the long scheme of time. He continues by saying: “But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us.” Quite evidently, Granger is remarking on how important it is to relish the little moment your life consists of, to continually try throughout your life to make a withstanding impact. More importantly, he draws on how, in recent times, the members of society have become conceited and complacent, assuming there is nothing more to life than what surrounds them, life’s true meaning belittled by the anti-intellectual vision of the government. It is through this manifest that Granger divulges the major themes of the novel, showing not only that life is a constant cyclic process, rather, how important it is that we recognize the position of literature in our social development. As we will explore, Granger acts as the hallmark for part three, and ultimately the underlying messages of the book.
Moreover, much like Bradbury seeks to impart on the reader, Granger (‘Modern Day Moses’), hopes to guide his group of literary disciples toward a promised land of free thought, alleviating the Dark Age and creating a new spark of intellectualism. This can be extended further, one could indeed say that Granger, remarking on how insignificant Montag is in the grand scheme of time and evolutionary expanse, is also saying that: on his own Montag isn’t much, but with the collective power of the group, the impact could be tremendous, a message quite similar to Bradbury’s. Throughout the novel we see Clarisse, then Montag, and then Faber, all try to create a humanistic spark within society, to change the minds of those who cannot see. However, despite their attempts, it is only

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