Fahrenheit 451: Guy Montag

Ray Bradbury's classic, Fahrenheit 451, tells of this guy, ironicly named Guy, who is the opposite of the perfect hero. Guy works as a fireman in the city, and that sounds like a great job. However, firemen in this novel do not put out fires; they actually start fires. In fact, they start fires for one reason: to rid the world of all the dreaded books. In the beginning, Guy is a model fireman; he starts fires with no questions and turns around as if nothing just happened. Actually, Guy loves doing his job. He sees it as beautiful and a rush to watch the fires he starts. However, as Guy goes through the novel, he finds wonder in the books he burns. He is so intrigued by the books and why are are so bad that he steals some twenty of them from the firehouse to get a glimpse of them. As a result of this massive interest in these forbidden books, his trust and faith in society as a whole rapidly decreases. He no longer loves his job; in fact, his job is killing him inside. He does not know whether he should even have the books because he is certain they will end him up in a whole mess of trouble. Also, he starts making rash desicions and jumps the gun on many things. These quick and usually stupid desicions are prominent when he finds himself setting Captain Beatty on fire. These decisions made in haste are also a representation of Guy's deep yern to rebel against the status quo and find a way of living that means something to him as a human being. In a desperate attempt to find his own self, Guy starts to get more and more into the Bible as means of reading something. He knows that the reading is wrong, but he really needs a way of letting himself be put into a good story, even one that has absolutely nothing to do with his own life.