Ensayo de farenheit 451

Luis Fernando Acosta.

English 8th B

22 December 2013.                    Fahrenheit 451.

- George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, socialist, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. There was a day in which he said: ``who can’t change his mind, will never change anything´´. This is what in the Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag realizes. When Montag discovers that fire can warm instead of burn, his mind will irreversibly be changed, and this will save him, others and knowledge itself. At the beginning of the novel, we meet a Guy Montag, as a fireman who loves to burn, and fears knowledge. But as he travels his own Odyssey, he will end up leaving the shadows and embracing knowledge. He will not only help restore order and a helpless society, but will he stop history and wisdom from burning down to ashes.

-When Montag is first introduced to us, he is a fireman. `` It was a pleasure to burn ´´      (pg 3). This is how the novel begins, and it explains pretty well how Montag felt. For him burning was all he could do. It meant having wealth and luxuries, like TV walls. Burning made him who he was, and he never questioned the method nor the importance of his work. His journey begins when he meets a seventeen year old girl. `` Of course I’m happy. What does she think? I’m not´´ (pg 10). This is what is going on our protagonist´s head. He starts thinking about it ever since Clarisse McClellan asked him if he was happy. Now Montag sees everything different. The way his life and work are, start to bother him. This change is only a clue to what might be hidden in the ventilation grill in his house, for he has been looking strangely at it for a few months.

In the second part of this book Montag has already started to change the way he thinks and sees things. By now he has unveiled the mystery of the ventilation grill, letting his wife know that he had been keeping books instead of burning them. Unfortunately he has also been changing the way he speaks, making his boss captain Beatty, suspicious on him. He has also realized that he doesn’t know nor love Mildred, and neither does she. ``I don’t speak things, sir´´ said Faber. `` I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know that I am alive´´ (page 75). This is what the English professor, Faber; told Montag when they first met, and now he is vital to Montag, for he teaches him the things that he needed. When Montag shows at his house with a bible, Faber accepts to instruct him as long as he can and tells him about a group of intellectuals that have sheltered in the country. ``Why´´ said Montag slowly, ``We’ve stopped in front of my house´´ (pg10). It’s with this phrase that the author decides to end the second part. By telling us this, we know that the other firemen discovered that Montag had books in his house. This leaves Montag with 2 chances:

• Be arrested
• Escape and take shelter with the intellectuals and shelter with them in the open.

But it also generates a still greater question starts to form. Who told the firemen about the books?

-“The books, Montag!” (pg116). This is what Beatty tells Montag while he was making Montag burn to ashes his very own house. By the time Montag has finished burning down his own house, Beatty has already started to mock of Montag, and he is now getting Montag seriously angry. When Montag finally loses control of himself, he uses a flame thrower to incinerate Beatty and runs away, to the country, where he meets the intellectuals. “The voices talked of everything, and there was nothing they could not talk about”(pg 146). This how the author decides to describe at first the intellectuals, and Montag discovers out that this phrase is true, for they were truly wise and cultivated. They greeted Montag and helped him out of rush, and thirst. When he watches a pair of war planes drop bombs on the city, he knows he now has a new duty. He will no longer burn, but will he warm.

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