Fahrenheit 451 Character Analysis

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The protagonist (Montag) changed as a result of meeting a young girl named Clarisse, that you girl being hit by a car and dying, and him ending up killing Captain Beatty. Montag was an “ordinary man” who ended up changing into a hero by the end of the book. One way that Montag changed was by meeting a young girl, named Clarisse McClellan. The night that Montag met her, he felt like something in the air was completely different than he ever felt before. In Fahrenheit 451, The author wrote “The air seemed charged with a special calm as if someone had waited there, quietly, and only a moment before he came and simply turned to a shadow and let him through.” (Bradbury 3) This part in the book explained what he felt changed in the air the night…show more content…
He didn’t find this out until his wife, Mildred told him and he was very upset, because he saw Clarisse as a daughter that he never had. “Whole family moved out somewhere. But she’s gone for good. I think she’s dead,” (Bradbury 44) Mildred said this with no emotion at all and this kind of hurt Montag. “We couldn’t be talking about the same girl,” (Bradbury 44) Montag just couldn’t believe that she was gone. Mildred just kept saying “No. The same girl. McClellan. McClellan. Run over by a care. 4 days ago. I’m not sure. But I think she’s dead. The family moved out anyway. I don’t know. But I think she’s dead.” (Bradbury 44) The fact that Mildred said this over and over again without any emotion, hurt Montag a lot, and when he asked Mildred why she hadn’t told him sooner, she just said that she forgot. Which was an awful way to tell Montag that she was gone for…show more content…
Montag ended up killing Beatty, because he was antagonizing him way too much, and he wanted to die to get out of his miserable life. In Fahrenheit 451 “Well that’s one way to get an audience. Hold a gun to a man and get him to listen to your speech. Speech away. What’ll it be this time? Why don’t you belch Shakespeare at me, you fumbling snob? ‘There in no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am arm’d so strong in honesty that they pass by me as an idle wind, Which I respect not!’ How’s that? Go ahead now, you second-hand literateur, pull the trigger,” (Bradbury 113) Beatty was literally telling Montag to kill him and he was taking a step forward while saying this. “Beatty wanted to die,” (Bradbury 116) When Montag had realized this he was confused as to why Beatty wanted to die. “How strange, strange, to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad, and then….” (Bradbury 116) This shows how confused Montag is to why someone would want to kill themselves this way, to have other people kill them and it kind of upsets him, because he didn’t want to do something stupid like that, but he couldn’t help himself because of how much Beatty was antagonizing him. Montag would have never done something like this if he hadn’t been antagonized, or if Beatty would’ve just let him

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