Though not the shortest of stories I wanted to look at the story Fahrenheit 451 to examine what extent Montag is and exemplifies heroic qualities as we discussed in class. Fahrenheit 451 uses Guy to show a person who is indoctrinated by the society he lives in but one who can come to break out of this and embarks on the journey to become a hero. Guy is one who exemplifies not one way of heroism but one who is a product of many aspects.
The book Fahrenheit 451 begins with a man named Guy Montag. Montag is a fireman who is placed in a futuristic society. The society that he is placed in is one where the role we know firefighters have today is reversed. In this way firemen are paid to start fires instead of putting them out. The second notable thing that is mentioned is that whenever books are found they are burned upon their discovery. This is this way due to books having a sort of ban on them. This concept plays out in the story of fire alarms in which when one is sounded they are usually to go to a residence and burn it down. What is interesting is that, in the start of this book we can see Montag not having many qualms with his work. He is seen as being so indoctrinated even seeing people’s attachment to books during his work does not initially phase him all that much. The first we see of it doing so in the instance where the firemen are called out to a woman who is hiding literature. When they are called out she is seen as wanting to be buried alive with her books, instead of watching them all parish. Soon thereafter he meets Clarisse McClellan this is a girl who ends up being his neighbor. She talks to him a lot and ends up helping him to see more to life. Soon after he has met Clarisse he returns home. Upon doing so he then finds his wife has taken an entire bottle of sleeping pills and has thus overdosed. Though when he does end up calling for help the medics are not the first people to come, rather it is the plumbers. They state that this sort of thing happens all the time and they proceed to attend to her. The next day Montag’s wife awakens and she is unaware of anything that happened to her the other day. Montag furthermore becomes less and less happy with the life that he has the more he is able to talk to Clarisse.
Paramount to the development of the story is the growing notion that books might not be all that bad, this idea growing from his many meetings with Clarisse. Montag meets Clarisse as someone who is willing to engage the automated fireman he has become. Before they met Montag is nothing more than someone who’s life is like clockwork. He goes to work and then goes home to cope with his unstable wife. This cycle has been so repetitive that Montag himself is not aware at all of what he is doing. Clarisse is someone who comes into the story to begin to set Montag straight. She is the first person who makes himself aware, as he may not have been before. Furthermore, she is someone who pushes him to take more intense measures. He comes to believe this idea that book may have value to such an extent that he steals a book from a house that he supposed to completely burn down. While all of this is happening, Clarisse disappears and the boss of Montag begins to grow suspicious of him. His boss captain Beatty grows suspicious to such a degree that he even ends up going to Montag’s house to search it. during their conversations captain Beatty lectures Montag about how dangerous books can be and then moves to show him why they do what they do.
Instead of gaining more confidence for the profession which he currently enjoys he is made even more rebellious than ever before. Later that day he used the time to read a multitude of books which he has been hiding away for a very long time. He then goes to find someone who can help him, he takes a bible with him then and tries to memorize some of it on the way. Later on, in the story he finds someone who can help him it is an old professor who is named Faber. Faber comes into the story when he is in the park one day. In the beginning the professor is somewhat reserved in his help to Montag. As the story goes on it becomes noticeable that he will help him in his work against the firemen. During one of their meetings Faber gives Montag a two-way radio earpiece and then sends him off. Later in the evening when Montag Is home he makes the mistake of reading some poetry that is illegal to his wife and to their friends. This would become yet another initial act that he takes on becoming a hero. When he reads this to them he is extremely unaware of the consequences or is not afraid to say what he thinks is right. After he is seen reciting this to them they are all rather confused and upset by his doing. This confusion and being upset may have come from the idea that there are bad repercussions from speaking out like this. This becomes notable later when it is indeed his wife who turns on him.
Later on, when they are all at the firehouse Beatty begins to joke around with Montag by quoting phrases that are very contradictory in nature from a book they both know. Through this he is trying to do nothing else than prove that literature is nothing more than something that is problematic and damaging. While on duty they respond to an alarm, upon getting there he is alarmed to see a fire alarm happening at his own house. Later on, it is revealed that Montag’s wife placed that call and she has run away before anyone could have gotten there. Montag is then forced to burn down his own hose. While he is there he turns around and kills captain Beatty by burning him. He furthermore knocks out the rest of the firefighters and runs away taking the books from his backyard. Soon after he makes his way to a payphone and calls in on another firefighter to expand the scope of conflict. Now that he is wanted for breaking that law, Montag is seen escaping and trying to get to Faber’s house. There he watches his own manhunt, The two men then agree that it is not safe and that they should meet up later in a place that is much safer. Montag flees to the river which is near to the edge of the city. The inconclusive manhunt for him ends in a random civilian being killed because the government does not want to show that they have not caught him. After this Montag then ponders his life and who he is. After much time, he finally runs into people who are bound to a forest. The people who he encounters turn out to be professor and intellectuals. They let him know their purpose which has turned into memorizing books. Montag wishes then to join them in what they seek to accomplish. Nearing the end of the text, a war is seen beginning and ending which a seeming destruction of the world. It is then realized that the people in the woods may be some of the only people alive. They then realize that it is on them to attempt to rebuild society. the book officially concludes with Montag remembering a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes.
The ending of the book surely shows how the man we got to know as Montag has heroic qualities, though I would argue that these extend from the beginning of the book. One of the most notable characteristics of the book is that he does not in any way really start out as a hero. Rather the beginning of the story shows him in a more villain light than it does anything else. He is quite literally at the start of the book someone who takes credit for burning down people’s homes, something that he enjoys. Montag is in reality moved more by the emotions he holds, he is definitely not moved due to an inner inclination to be a hero. In actuality, he doesn’t even totally take action until his hand is forced a certain way.
To perpetuate this notion is the idea that he actually becomes blind to the moral compass within himself. At the start, the society and culture around him helps him to continue this blindness. Though slowly he becomes less and less blind and is able to think for himself. This may be slow and take time though it can be noted as being a heroic act. This act becomes heroic because he is able then to think past the regime that governs him. One of his first heroic realizations he has is in what it is to be a writer. It is due to the efforts of Clarisse that he sees burning books as something wrong. He sees that books can come to represent someone’s life work. They are a place to express someone’s world view. After this he is able to see that when he burns the books he is also destroying the efforts of a writer throughout their life. This idea helps him come to the conclusion that his work in a way is immoral and not just. Montag in a way definitely exemplifies the idea bought up in class of going through some sort of trial. Montag ultimately becomes a hero due to his nonconformity to the world in which he is placed. More specially he becomes a hero due to the non-conformity to the totalitarian government that rules over him. The second really heroic action he takes is the first move to go against the government. This being in the form of taking the books. By taking them he makes the active choice to become someone who thinks for himself. After trying to better himself he then can become a hero who tries to better society around himself.
To conclude despite all the hardships Montag faced and will face all come down to the idea that Montag needs to be an agent of change for the world he lives in. therefore Montag is a hero due to his acceptance that he must give up his way of life to fight for things that are just and which he thinks can help to better society. Eventually Montag gains all the qualities that a hero has. He becomes a moral figure that teaches people to do the right things in life even when everyone in society speaks otherwise. One lasting note is that he shows how sometimes people have to give up certain things and make sacrifices to gain other things. Guy in Fahrenheit 451 shows that heroes may not always be born though sometimes they are like we discussed. Other times heroes are made through being tested.