Can you briefly describe the character Montag from Fahrenheit 451?

Montag is a common, working class man who initially never questions society or the complexities of life.  He lives a robotic existence in a society that places little to no value on individuality. Through Clarisse, a teenage girl who questions the small nuisances of life, Montag’s internal conflict is incited. Montag begins to question the world. This puts him in conflict with his employer, his wife, his neighbors, and, for the most part, society. Montag eventually decides the conflicts he faces are worth battling. He sacrifices his “comfortable” life as a firefighter to live as a fugitive, then amongst an underground circuit of rejects that have devoted themselves to continuing the individual thought that literacy offers.

Can you briefly describe the character Montag from Fahrenheit 451?

In as few words as possible, Guy Montag from Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is:

Shy, awkward with people, discontented, unhappy, unsatisfied, inquisitive, curious, brave, and open to new ideas.

Discontented means he is not content with his life.  He is unsatisfied in the sense that he knows there must be something more to life and existence than he has.  Inquisitive is similar to curious but perhaps a little stronger.  And he wants to learn and be exposed to new ideas. 

Montag has many personality traits, but I hope what I've listed above helps you out.  

Can you briefly describe the character Montag from Fahrenheit 451?

Guy Montag is a fireman who is the main character of the book.  In this book, firemen do not put out fires.  Instead, they burn down the houses of people who are caught in posession of books.

At the beginning of the book, Montag is satisfied with his life and his work.  But then a variety of things happen and he starts to doubt the goodness of burning books and he starts to wonder if his society might need to be changed completely.

Because of this, he starts to read books.  This leads to his house getting burned down.  He then kills his boss and runs away to the countryside, hoping to have a chance to help change society later on.

Describe Montag's transition from fireman to intellectual revolutionary in Fahrenheit 451.

At the beginning of the novel, Montag is fully satisfied with his life as a fireman. He takes pleasure in burning the books and has a visceral high from his job, somewhat like an addiction: 

He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burntcorked, 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. 

In this role, Montag is a tool of the authorities. He has been conditioned and brainwashed to believe that burning books is a righteous vocation. He has also been taught that creative thinking and questioning things are practices that will only lead to dysfunction and unhappiness. So, he doesn't think of such things. 

The first instance that sparks the beginning of change in Montag occurs with his first conversation with Clarisse. After bombarding him with questions, she leaves asking him if he is happy. He is struck by the fact that she got him to think about himself in a profound way: 

People were more often-he searched for a simile, found one in his work-torches, blazing away until they whiffed out. How rarely did other people's faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought? 

He goes home and has to deal with Mildred's overdose. Then he actually says, "I don't know anything anymore." He is clearly uncertain about things at this point, whereas at the beginning of the novel, he is comfortable and happy in his ignorance. 

Another conversation with Clarisse moves Montag to have more questions. He sees a woman choose to burn with her books during a raid on her house. This affects him deeply. In a later conversation with Millie regarding this event, he says, "There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing." Montag steals a book from the raid. 

His curiosity about books and knowledge increases. He takes more books. He seeks out advice from Faber, a college professor. Clarisse's disappearance also is a clue. He begins questioning a society that would eliminate a girl simply for being curious about life. In a culminating moment, he reads poetry to Millie and her friends. This leads Millie and one of her friends to turn Montag in. But by this point, he has his mind set on becoming the intellectual revolutionary. In the end, he must flee his own home and happens upon the other traveling intellectuals. 

What traits does Montag exhibit when he reads the first line in Fahrenheit 451?

Having been moved by the woman with a multitude of books who refused to leave her house when the firemen prepare to torch it, Montag had books fall into his arms until his hand

closed like a mouth, crushed the book with wild devotion, with an insanity of mindlessness to his chest.

At home he has hidden this book, but Montag has thought long about the woman and measured the firemen against her. He tells Mildred that they are going to have to try to put their lives back together and, perhaps, reading will help.

Then, in Part II, Montag pulls down the book from its hiding place and he and Mildred sit on the floor. Montag squats down and "read[s] a page as many as ten times, aloud." He reads a line about friendship and he begins to think about Christine, the first person in "a good many years I've really liked."  Montag realizes that she is the first person in years who has spoken to him as though he matters, and she herself has discussed topics that are real and important--disturbing in their reality because they have pointed to the dehumanization of their society. And then he recalls the old man in the park, a retired English professor, tossed away by a society no longer interested in the liberal arts. This man spoke in a cadenced voice as he looked around at the sky and trees. Then, growing braver, the professor spoke in verse, and Montag knew it was a poem; however he did not reach into the pocket. After the man finishes his poem, he hands Montag his address on a slip of paper for his "file," saying it's in case Montag decides "to be angry with me." Montag recalls the man's parting words: 

"I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and I know I'm alive."

To Montag's ideas about revitalizing their minds and awakening their souls, Millie is unresponsive; it is as though her soul has been sucked out along with the other things that the "snake-like thing" vacuumed from her that night she almost died.  With her shrieks of empty laughter at the Clown show, Montag dials the phone number of Professor Faber. 

How does the opening paragraph of Fahrenheit 451 reveal Montag's character traits?

The paragraph introduces Montag as someone who enjoys his work, and does not stop to think about what he is doing.

Montag imagines himself as a conductor in a symphony.  He wants nothing more than to be in the fire, burning the books and contents of fireproof houses.

Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. (part one)

There are many metaphors used in the first paragraph.  The second paragraph has more detail.  There we learn that Montag takes pride in his work.  He shines his helmet and hangs up his jacket neatly.  He gets a rush from having faced fire and lived to tell about it.  He also seems to enjoy the pure destructive power he has with fire.

What are some characteristics of Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451?

The novel never mentions him having any hobbies; the opening passage seems to indicate that he is consumed by his job.  It is everything to him, so much that a "fiery grin still gripped his face muscles" as he dreamt about burning things at night in his sleep.  He ridicules and mocks Mildred's t.v. walls, so we get the impression that he isn't really into those either.  His dark secret hobby though is his fascination with books.  When he enters his house for the first time we meet him, it alludes to the fact that he already has a book hidden in "the ventilator grille in the hall."  So, that is his hobby and interest.

We don't know where he came from; he mentions his childhood only in a memory brought on by Clarisse's face; he recalls a power outage where his mother and he had sat in candlelight "alone, transformed, hoping that the power might not come on again too soon."  Of religion, there is no mentioning of one.  Given the descriptions of his society, it is easy to infer that it is a pretty godless society; entertainment and busyness is their religion.  Of children, he evades the issue when Clarisse asks, stating, "my wife...never wanted any children at all."  So, those are some of the things that would give us more information about Montag, but in reality they don't; it is very little information.

As the novel progresses, we learn that he is a thinker, a deeply troubled man, passionate and questioning.  He is also very brave, willing to commit sabotage in order to change the world.  He is an unlikely hero, who sets out to incorporate changes into his life, but ends up with more than he ever bargained for.

What is Montag's profession in Fahrenheit 451 and what are his feelings towards it?

Montag is a fireman, but not the kind of fireman we would think of automatically today. In this futuristic world, in which reading is against the law, Guy Montag's job is to burn books. At first he is fairly ambivalent about this, but after having a conversation with his new neighbor, seventeen-year-old Clarisse McLellan, his mind starts to change.

Most people have accepted the status quo in this rigid, structured, dystopic society, but Clarisse is not one of those people. She asks Montag if it's true that in different times, firemen used to put fires out, rather than being the ones to start them.

Clarisse then throws Montag further off kilter by asking him if he's happy. This makes him start to think, because he has never thought about this. No one has ever asked him such a question.

His curiosity about life and the way things are continues to grow, and he winds up stealing a bible that he is meant to be burning. His disillusionment with his job grows and grows. Eventually, Montag conspires with a former professor named Faber, and the two formulate a plot to overthrow the firemen.

Unfortunately, Montag's wife alerts the authorities to what they are up to. His protest against his former job leads him to burn down his house and murder his boss.

By the end of the novel, Montag has joined a group of vagabonds who are memorizing books so that even if they are destroyed, they can never be lost.

What is Montag's profession in Fahrenheit 451 and what are his feelings towards it?

Montag is a fireman. In his dystopic world, this means he burns books. This is a high-status job and when the novel opens he is proud to have it.

Books are banned in his society, and those people hiding books have their homes burned out. In the beginning of the novel, Montag gets a thrill from the excitement of incinerating the illegal volumes.

But as he meets and talks with Clarisse, he begins to realize he is not very happy. This is a "drip" that begins to put out the pleasure of his fire-based job. Another drip is Mildred's attempted suicide. He begins to realize that being a fireman is not all that thrilling after all. Instead, he becomes interested in books and reading.

As Montag's consciousness shifts, he begins to dislike his job more and more. He gets to a point where he doesn't want to go to work. He begins to collect books and tries to get Mildred to join him in reading. He connects with former professor Faber, and the two plot to undermine the firemen's book burning work.

The novel shows Montag shifting from gung-ho book burning enthusiast and supporter of dystopic social norms to someone who increasingly questions the system. As he does so, he moves from book burner to book preserver.

What is Montag's profession in Fahrenheit 451 and what are his feelings towards it?

Once upon a time (in our society), firemen used to put out fires. But in the dystopian nightmare world Guy Montag inhabits, a fireman's job is to set fires—to set fires on which books are thrown, to be precise. Books are considered dangerous in this conformist, mass-consumerist society; they do crazy things like encourage people to think. So, onto the fire they go.

At first, Montag is incredibly proud of the part he plays in these wanton acts of bibiliophobic destruction. He cheerfully goes along with burning books without a moment's thought, just as a loyal servant of the regime should. It's only after meeting a highly unusual woman by the name of Clarisse—unusual in that she is a staunch non-conformist with ideas of her own—that Montag begins to see the light among the heat, as it were. From then on, he gradually morphs into a rebel, determined to overthrow the evil regime to which he's given such loyal, faithful service over many years.

What is Montag's profession in Fahrenheit 451 and what are his feelings towards it?

The opening line of Fahrenheit 451 describes Montag's feelings about his job:

"It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened, and changed" (3).

Initially, Montag is proud to be a fireman. He upholds the law by burning the houses of those who own books, and, of course, he burns the books as well.

When he meets a teenaged girl named Clarisse, he tells her that kerosene "is nothing but perfume to me" (6). This shows that Montag not only likes his job, but he fancies it to the point of loving the smell of the thing that helps to start the fires. When the girl presses him further to discuss his job, Montag proudly says that "It's fine work" (8). All he really has to do is show up to people's houses, burn books, then the house, and return to the fire station. Usually, the police arrest the owners of the home before the firemen arrive, so Montag doesn't see that he is hurting people in his line of work. It's just fun to burn things down, and he's been doing it for ten years.

After meeting Clarisse, who challenges his current state of mind about life and his job, he also sees a woman burn herself for her books. Apparently, the police didn't get to the old woman and arrest her before the firemen arrive at the scene. Montag is so mentally disturbed to witness the old woman's suicide that he goes home and throws up. Based on his experiences with Clarisse and the old woman, Montag changes and doesn't see his job as so noble anymore, and that is where the rest of the story begins.

What is Montag's profession in Fahrenheit 451 and what are his feelings towards it?

Montag's job in Fahrenheit 451 is that of a fireman. He is charged with the task of burning books. This act is done in the hopes of calming the masses by eliminating material that may drive them to express themselves in a negative manner. At the beginning of the novel, Montag does not mind his job; he just does what he is told without question.

Then after meeting a young woman named Clarisse, he begins to change. She questions his role as firefighter which causes him to question what he does for a living. Montag soon realizes that everyone is dulled into a false sense of happiness. This is achieved through the removal of the things which could stimulate people mentally and so forth, namely the books he is burning at work.

Which book does Montag embody in Fahrenheit 451?

The book that Montag "becomes" at the end of the novel is the Book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible, which was the book that he stole from the woman's house at the beginning of the story. After killing Beatty, Montag runs through the streets to Faber's house who advises him to escape to the countryside and find the exiles who live there, whom he calls the "book lovers."

When he approaches a campfire in the countryside, the leader of the exiles, Granger, explains that each of them have memorized a book and the knowledge within, and they will use the knowledge to help rebuild society with the time comes. Montag explains that he has partially memorized the book of Ecclesiastes, and he is accepted to live among the exiles until they return to the ruined city to commence their work.

Which book does Montag embody in Fahrenheit 451?

In Part 3, Montag manages to escape the authorities and flee the dystopian city by floating down the river and hiking into the wilderness. As Montag is walking through the forest, he sees a small campfire and approaches the group of men sitting around the fire. Montag learns that the group of men are traveling intellectuals, who preserve knowledge by remembering entire books verbatim. When Granger asks Montag what he has to offer, Montag tells him that he recalls bits and pieces of the Book of Ecclesiastes and Revelation. When Montag mentions that he has forgotten almost everything that he has read, Granger assures him that they have developed a method for recalling anything that has been read once. After the dystopian city is destroyed by an atomic bomb, Montag walks toward the ashes and recalls several verses from the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Book of Revelation. Montag will utilize the method developed by Simmons and the other traveling intellectuals to remember those two specific books of the Bible and eventually record them for survivors to read while they begin to rebuild a literate society.

Which book does Montag embody in Fahrenheit 451?

At the end of "Fahrenheit 451" we read that Montag has escaped from the firemen and the mechanical hounds.  He finds himself in the middle of a group of "book people."  Each person in the forest has committed to memory a specific book so that when the day arrived for the freedom of books, they would be able to re-write and share their book.  Montag became part of the "Holy Bible."  Montag was "Ecclesiastes" from the Old Testament.

Who is Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451 and what is his occupation?

The main character and protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, Montag is one of the futuristic society's firemen. 

Clearly, in this futuristic society the denotation and connotations of the word fireman have changed from the word's original meaning. Rather than being a saving force, the fireman of Bradbury's narrative is a destructive force; he does not represent rescue but that which inhibits and destroys.

For Montag, the meaning of his occupation is drastically altered when the occupant of one house to which the firemen are called does not obey their order to vacate the premises. She insists upon remaining with her many beloved books and holds up a match. Seeing this match, the men back off and leave the house. They see her strike the match on the railing and the house catches fire. As the firemen make their way back to the station, Montag mentions that she said, "Play the man, Master Riley. Something, something, something."

Captain Beatty knows the passage and explains that it is from a man named Latimer, who said it to Nicholas Ridley as they were being burned alive at Oxford, for heresy on 16 October 16, 1555. 

After watching the woman die with her books, Montag begins to wonder what power the printed word holds. He returns to the secret stash of books that he has been collecting. When he finally realizes how the burning of books has affected society, Montag's life is irrevocably changed.

Who is Guy Montag in Fahrenheit 451 and what is his occupation?

Guy Montag is the protagonist (main character) in Fahrenheit 451. At the start of the novel, Guy is a fireman. He doesn't put out fires. He starts them. His job is to burn books that are forbidden by the state. To expand on this a bit, you can consider Guy an enforcer of state ideology and an enforcer of censorship. Fahrenheit 451 is a larger work Bradbury developed from a short story he wrote in 1947. The book burning can be seen as a reference to the Nazi book burnings during the rise of the Third Reich. The theme of censorship and limitation of freedom, when it comes to books and knowledge, may be a reference to the era, 1950's, of censorship carried out by McCarthy in the United States. In general, Guy's job is to extinguish any literature that might provoke citizens to question their societal conditions. Guy's title is fireman, but his function is to suppress free thinking by burning books. He is an agent of the state (“Big Brother”); that is, until he has his awakening. 

How does Bradbury characterize Montag in the first few paragraphs of Part I in Fahrenheit 451?

Guy Montag is the perfect citizen of his society at the beginning of the book.  He is a fireman who doesn't put out fires but starts them. He finds pleasure in burning things.

"It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed." (pg 3)

The brass nozzle he holds is filled with kerosene, and he visualizes himself as the conductor of a symphony, a symphony that will burn and tear down the "charcoal ruins of history". He is a man who makes beautiful music with his kerosene and igniter.  He flicks the igniter and sets everything on fire, fantasizing about putting a marshmallow on a stick and roasting it while the ashen pages of books float around him. 

He grins a "fierce" grin -- one of pleasure.  Similar to a pyromaniac, he enjoys a good fire. He sees himself in the mirror as a "minstrel man", a man who creates music and song from events such as this, and he knows he will go to sleep with that same grin on his face.  He always had that grin after a fire.  It never went away as long as he could remember.