Fahrenheit 451: Montag’s Transformation and the Power of Books
Montag’s Awakening in Fahrenheit 451
When Montag is called to an unidentified woman’s house “in the ancient part of the city,” he is amazed to find that the woman will not abandon her home or her books. The woman is clearly a martyr, and her martyrdom profoundly affects Montag. Before she is burned, the woman makes a strange yet significant statement: “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” Nicholas Ridley, the Bishop of London in the sixteenth century, was an early martyr for the Protestant faith. He was convicted of heresy and sentenced to burn at the stake with a fellow heretic, Hugh Latimer. Latimer’s words to Ridley are the ones that the unidentified woman alludes to before she is set aflame. (Note that a couple visual metaphors for knowledge were traditionally of a woman, sometimes bathed in bright light or holding a burning torch.) Ironically, the woman’s words are prophetic; through her own death by fire, Montag’s discontent drives him to an investigation of what books really are, what they contain, and what fulfillment they offer.
Montag is unable to understand the change that is taking place within him. With a sickening awareness, he realizes that always at night the alarm comes. Never by day! Is it because fire is prettier by night? More spectacle, a better show?” He questions why this particular fire call was such a difficult one to make, and he wonders why his hands seem like separate entities, hiding one of the woman’s books under his coat. Her stubborn dignity compels him to discover for himself what is in books.
If Clarisse renews his interest in the sheer excitement of life and Mildred reveals to him the unhappiness of an individual’s existence in his society, the martyred woman represents for Montag the power of ideas and, hence, the power of books that his society struggles to suppress.
When Mildred tells Montag that the McClellans moved away because Clarisse died in an automobile accident, Montag’s dissatisfaction with his wife, his marriage, his job, and his life intensifies. As he becomes more aware of his unhappiness, he feels even more forced to smile the fraudulent, tight-mouthed smile that he has been wearing. He also realizes that his smile is beginning to fade.
When Montag first entertains the idea of quitting his job for a while because Millie offers him no sympathetic understanding, he feigns illness and goes to bed. (In all fairness, however, Montag feels sick because he burned the woman alive the night before. His sickness is, so to speak, his conscience weighing upon him.)
Captain Beatty, as noted earlier, has been suspicious of Montag’s recent behavior, but he isn’t aware of the intellectual and moral changes going on in Montag. However, he recognizes Montag’s discontent, so he visits Montag. He tells Montag that books are figments of the imagination. Fire is good because it eliminates the conflicts that books can bring. Montag later concludes that Beatty is actually afraid of books and masks his fear with contempt. In effect, his visit is a warning to Montag not to allow the books to seduce him.
Notice that Beatty repeatedly displays great knowledge of books and reading throughout this section. Obviously, he is using his knowledge to combat and twist the doubts that Montag is experiencing. In fact, Beatty points out that books are meaningless, because man as a creature is satisfied as long as he is entertained and not left uncertain about anything. Books create too much confusion because the intellectual pattern for man is “out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery.” Therefore, books disrupt the regular intellectual pattern of man because they lack definitive clarity.
Another interesting point discussed by Beatty in this section is how people view death. While discussing death, Beatty points out, “Ten minutes after death a man’s a speck of black dust. Let’s not quibble over individuals with memoriums.”