Who are the members of the group Montag meets and what is their self-perception in Fahrenheit 451?
In Part Three of Fahrenheit 451, Montag meets a group of men in the woods. These men consist of former college professors who are ostracised from society because of their opposition to censorship. Their leader, Granger, for example, struck a fireman and has been running ever since.
Each man has memorised a book and, often, at great risk to himself: some have undergone plastic surgery, for instance, and others have had their fingerprints altered.
According to Granger, these men do not consider themselves to be important, as he tells Montag:
Hold on to one thought: You're not important. You're not anything.
Instead, Granger believes that these men are simply "remembering" knowledge and that, one day, this knowledge might be called upon by the next generation:
They weren't at all certain that the things they carried in their heads might make every future dawn glow with a purer light.
These...
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men, therefore, function as symbols of hope: their future role may be uncertain but it is tinged with optimism.