Burning a Hole in Fahrenheit 451

Burning a Hole in Fahrenheit

Final Draft

Fahrenheit 451 has various main characters. These characters play the most important role in creating the feel of the story. Their appearance, actions, ideas, and relationships to other characters in the story give important insight to the world of Fahrenheit 451.

Bradbury’s craft of creating characters with much symbolism is one of the most important aspects of Fahrenheit 451. From Guy Montag to Captain Beatty, he implements careful design in each character, molding them into more than just symbols.

Guy Montag is the main character in the story; he is the pillar on which all other characters rest, and the character which all other characters revolve around. The effect Bradbury creates of him is that he is an ignorant, naпve person. His faith in all humanity is crippled from the first page, it seems, and is further strained by Clarisse McClellan. Montag’s actions are most often rash, with little or no thought attached to them ,which is implemented by Bradbury as a metaphor to Montag’s socialization: acting for the moment on impulse, rather then thinking deeply before acting. This is illustrated on page 70, when he makes books out to be some sort of godly invention; something that would give sense and reason to the world, a problem solver, if you will. He also forms deep attachments to people who seem willing to be his allies, which further illustrates Bradbury pouring in a sense of incompleteness in the development of Montag, the person. In addition to this, Montag is constantly compelled to resist society, and resist the status quo. Upon his reading of the first book, the immensity and complexity thereof, he has a frustrated air throughout the book, as well as one who is confused, trying to find deeper understanding of the world and not coming to terms with reality at some points. Again this is illustrated not only on page 70 (see above) but also in the later sections of the book where he seeks out Faber’s help in understanding. Deeper yet is his willingness to be swayed. Once told to do something he most often does it, which can be described on page 38, when he is told by one of his fellow firefighters “Don’t just stand there idiot…..Kerosene”. Immediately his body seems to become controlled by some outside force that forces him into a craze to burn books. Finally, he overemphasizes the relevance of books in relation to discovering his own life. Resulting from this he finds himself constantly blundering into situations as discussed above, without much thought. With his overemphasis on books, come also his confusion and his inability to do things by himself. He is constantly torn between acting on his own free will and that of others.

In a sense, Guy Montag is an anomaly; the result of some sort of societal incident which made him a bit more of an independent thinker then most, however, his mind is constantly swayed; unable to cope with things himself he seeks out the knowledge as counsel of a man named Professor Faber.

Symbolism is used in this name two fold. One is that the name ‘Faber’ is the name of a major publishing company. In addition, the name could refer to the oldest pen/pencil maker in Europe. One can never tell for sure, but, nevertheless, his presence in the book is of great importance. One could argue that it was Faber who was the first man to win over Montag’s mind, or to, at least, free it. This I say because on page 74, Faber was referred to as the “old man in the park a year ago”. Faber’s existence can also be defined as two fold. On one hand Faber is a scared old man, without much hope for society. On the other, he helps Montag on his way. Some times one