What Does Fire Symbolize In Fahrenheit 451

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Fire has multiple meanings in the book of Fahrenheit 451. The first includes using fire as a dark sense of pleasure, fire then shifts into making Montag feel numb and unhappy, and later fire is changed into being something warm and inspiring. In the beginning of the book Montag is in a state of complete emptiness where he does not think about much in the world. However, fire makes Montag feel “pleasure” and he enjoyed to see things “blackened and changed”. (Bradbury 3). The world around Montag slowly evolves into something new when he is greeted by a young teenage girl that goes by the name of Clarisse. Clarisse sees the world differently than Montag. Montag doesn't think about why he enjoys the feeling of burning things, but around Clarisse his mental transformation begins. Later in the first half Montag witnesses a lady willing to be burned in her house with her books. Burning books never bothered Montag until he started relating them to as people “... realized that a man was behind each on the books.” ( Bradbury 51). This new idea of what fire means to Montag makes him feel like burning books are not such a good thing because they harm actual people.…show more content…
Books and fire are changing Montag mentally as well as physically, “I’m numb...” (Bradbury 77). Numbness has taken over Montag, when he was young, he used to enjoy finding dimes in sieves. Now he enjoys nothing because he can no longer hold a smile on his face. Montag thinks that investigating his source of pain might do the trick into bringing him back into his old self, so he decides to seek advice from a retired English professor named Faber. After learning a thing or two from Faber, Montag no longer felt numb but he started to feel, “a strange warmness and goodness…” (Bradbury 102). Books made Montag feel enlightened and he believe that they no longer should be destroyed by the depths of the

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