Montag is heroic in that he reacts against a controlling society
that prohibits individuality and imagination. He finds such mindless conformity damaging to the
spirit.
Montag rebels against his dehumanizing society in the hope
of becoming a real person, one who truly thinks and acts without drugs. Having witnessed the
deterioration of his wife Mildred, who has become no more than the visions on the parlor screens,
a mere automaton who laughs on cue, and who listens to the buds in her ears, never hearing her
heart or that of her husband, Montag makes supreme efforts to re-engage her in life, but she
insists upon dwelling in the artificial world of her society. In fact, she is so insistent about
choosing this world that she reports her husband to the authorities. But, he defies these powers
of society, setting fire to Beatty and fleeing to Faber, who connects him to the people who dwell
in another place where they preserve the texts of famous works, the recordings of the thoughts of
philosophers, scientists, theologians, satirists, and historians of the past.
While Montag hides from the authorities, he talks with Granger, who
tells him about his grandfather, a sculptor, who created things. "He shaped the world. He
did things to the world," Granger
reflects.
"Everyone
must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said....Something your hand touches some
way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die....It doesn't matter what you do ...so long as
you change something from the way it was before you touched
it."
Montag changes his society by
rebelling against it, by burning what is evil rather than what is good, and he will leave
something behind as he has memorized the Book of Ecclesiastes.
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