Tuesday 13 June 2017

Where does Montag stop before going to Faber’s?

After Montag kills Beatty and escapes from the firemen, he runs to Beatty's home and plants several books before reporting it. Montag does this in order to carry out the plot he hatched with Faber earlier in the novel. Faber suggests the only way the world could begin healing itself would be "if somehow the fireman structure itself could be burnt." Then Faber hatches the full plot:


"Now if you suggest that we print extra books...

After Montag kills Beatty and escapes from the firemen, he runs to Beatty's home and plants several books before reporting it. Montag does this in order to carry out the plot he hatched with Faber earlier in the novel. Faber suggests the only way the world could begin healing itself would be "if somehow the fireman structure itself could be burnt." Then Faber hatches the full plot:



"Now if you suggest that we print extra books and arrange to have them hidden in firemen's houses all over the country, so that sedds of suspicion would be sown among these arsonists, bravo, I'd say!"



However, this plot turns out to be moot considering the entire city is destroyed by a nuclear attack that happens once Montag fully escapes into the forest. In fact, this destruction is foreshadowed in the same scene in which Faber suggests they frame the firemen. Faber says that the destruction of the firemen and the return to reading would only do so much, that "The whole culture's shot through." Then he suggests, "The skeleton needs melting and re-shaping," which is what happens with the destruction of the city.


Overall, the books, which the simple-minded Montag thought would solve all the social problems, proved to be nothing more than a symptom in a society that is ill. The planting of the books in the now-dead Beatty's home would have done very little to accomplish actual change.

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