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Guy Montag's Change In Fahrenheit 451

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Ray Bradbury illustrates a dynamic character, Guy Montag, with his change in mood, viewpoint, and actions throughout the book. In the first part of Fahrenheit 451 he was blind to what his world was becoming and didn’t realize how static he was. The turning point or his change in mood was when Clarisse asked Guy, “ are you happy” (Bradybury, 7). This made Guy think about his job, wife, and the kind of civilization he was living in. In the end Guy recognized he wasn’t pleased and hadn’t even thought about whether he was miserable, angry, or content in so long he wasn’t sure what happiness was by that point. In addition, Guy’s viewpoint on the books and professions began to modify in part two. After Guy viewed a woman die because of the fire …show more content…
The Phoenix Stone is shown in part 3 of the novel and it’s representing history and society. Through time history has repeated itself and at many times, there’s natural disasters or destruction caused by man. The Phoenix Stone is “first cousin to man” because man and the stone have both “burnt himself up [yet] sprang out of the ashes” (156). This is symbolizing the society in Fahrenheit 451 since they’re terminating their creativity and books but won’t realize it’s all gone until they also have to literally rise up from the ashes and start over again. Secondly, fire is the main symbol displaying its effects throughout the entire book. In the beginning of the novel Montages view on fire and just about the rest of society saw fire as a “Pleasure to burn” (McGiveron 3). Nobody saw fire for the destruction it was and if they did, they saw it as a virtuous object of nature. However, fire was not only signified as a “burning” upright kind of destruction of the society, but also used as “warming” (Lenhoff 3). The fire now represents an object that can help keep a person alive and warm and not destroy everything around it. The phoenix stone and fire both were large symbols used throughout the book showing the annihilation society and fire can do but also there …show more content…
When Montag first started taking books he was almost floating through his life, not even realizing what he was doing. He blamed, “his hands had [taken the books] done it all, his hand with a brain of its own, with a conscience and a curiosity in each trembling finger” (McGiveron 1). The passage suggests Guy isn’t fully aware of what he’s doing and that his hands are pushing him to do the “right” thing. Additionally hands in the book, and in life, can represent the actions people take and how they can prove to have more of an impact than words. To prove this when Bradbury illustrated the use of hands throughout the book it “seems to suggest that actions may indeed speak louder than words” (McGiveron 2). Fahrenheit 451 had various different events which proved actions spoke louder than words, such as when Guy took books and memorized them. It would have a greater impact on the future society than telling people he has them and the books getting burned. Furthermore, in the book there’s a large amount of image cluster being utilized, a literary device Bradbury used. Ray Bradbury wanted you to think about “fire and burning” but he also wanted you to imagine “light and running water” because they can both represent the same thing but just in a different perspective (Reid 5). He’s trying to make you imagine all of the images as one and not just have the same viewpoint as fire

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