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Cause-and-Effect Flow Chart
1
The Evolution of Guy Montag
By Yufei Wang
Beginning
Beginning
The protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag, works as a “fireman,” but his job duties actually include setting fires rather than putting them out. He is generally indifferent to the world around him, and spends little time thinking about deeper societal issues. He basically only exists to follow instructions from his superiors.
Indifferent
While at work, Montag is tasked with burning down a house filled with books. Inside the house is an old woman, who Montag recognizes and is intrigued by. While attempting to complete this job, the woman decides to die in a fire with her beloved books - a decision which causes Montag to begin to question his own life choices.
Quotes
Quotes
This situation demonstrates the extent of Montag’s indifference to his problematic job:"Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.
He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered. "(Page 2)
Rebirth
Along with his troubling encounter with the old woman who chooses to die with her books, Montag’s worldview is also challenged following his introduction to Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse is a 17 year old girl who seems to view the world quite differently from most others, and encourages Montag to evaluate his life by questioning the practices of the society that they live in.
Rebirth
Quotes
Quotes
In one scene where Montag is discussing his newfound unhappiness with life with his wife, he suggests that:
“Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying to myself, I'm not happy, I'm not happy." (Page 63)
In this respect, the reader begins to understand that Montag’s view of life has been fundamentally challenged after talking with Clarisse.
Action
After learning that Clarisse had been killed in a car accident and feeling the weight of watching the old woman burn to death with her books, Montag begins to distrust the society he once blindly followed. As a result, he is left fleeing from justice while seeking out the company of a society of intellectuals, who have made it their mission to memorize important books in order to preserve the knowledge these books contain.
Action
Quotes
Quotes
In this scene. Montag expresses a newfound interest in books, only to be challenged by Faber who suggests that Montag is really interested in the knowledge contained within the books: "'You're a hopeless romantic,' said Faber. 'It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the `parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not. No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.'" (Page 78)
Sympathy
By the end of the novel, Montag’s outlook on life has completely changed. He is now sympathetic to the goals of the professors he once would have viewed as enemies, and his mission in life is fundamentally different from the goals of the firemen. As he watches the city get destroyed by bombs, Montag feels a sense of purpose in life and desires to rebuild society using the information he once shunned.
Quotes
Quotes
“Montag walked in silence. "Millie, Millie," he whispered. "Millie." "What?" "My wife, my wife. Poor Millie, poor Millie. I can't remember anything. I think of her hands but I don't see them doing anything at all. They just hang there at her sides or they lie there on her lap or there's a cigarette in them, but that's all." Montag turned and glanced back. What did you give to the city, Montag? Ashes. What did the others give to each other? Nothingness.”(Page 149)