Changes In Characters In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

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Response Paper II (Changes in Characters) Writing literature, especially novels and stories, is a fairly complicated process that requires a great deal of precision and meticulousness. The reason is that the characters, the time and the place all need to be artfully linked together in a persuasive, natural way. For this to work, characters’ behavior and way of thinking need to be realistic; in our real world, most people rarely remain the same throughout their entire lives. They change usually due to some incident that took place, or just by their mere nature which tends to seek a change. The same applies to successful works of literature; these changes add entertainment and realism to the work of literature. Novel characters, especially the…show more content…
Some characters are written in a way that gives a clear impression to the reader that some of their personal traits are going to be the cause of a drastic change. The change could occur either to their personalities, or to their course of life in general, which actually in turn leads to a change in their mindset. In Ray Bradbury’s dystopian futuristic novel Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag, the protagonist, is initially a fireman whose job is to burn books as they were considered dangerous at that time. Montag does not in the beginning know why he is doing so and even finds pleasure in what he does as illustrated by Bradbury’s description: “Montag grinned the fierce grin all men signed and driven back by flame.”(Bradbury 2). However, deep within his character, he was different; he had to a great extent the quality of being able to think, a quality which was starting to vanish from such a dystopian society. He was just waiting for something to trigger his awareness…show more content…
Changes occur due to many factors; however, some authors tend to depict the impact of two specific factors that they find more effective and realistic. Destiny, in some writers’ opinion, is an element that changes people; the Greek classic Oedipus the King shows this idea when Oedipus was once the confident, proud king who said: “here I am myself – you all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus.”(Sophocles 159), and after discovering his inevitable fate, became a misfortunate, blind beggar. The other factor is time; Naguib Mahfouz displayed the influence of time on people in his story Half a Day when the young boy changed dramatically after experiencing the delights and hardships of his life that went by so fast. The change happened suddenly in a shocking way when he was offered help by someone who addressed him, not as a little boy, but as a

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