Farenheit 451

        When Montag meets Clarisse, his life is changed.. Clarisse is portrayed as an odd teenager who is socially challenged. In fact, she is the complete opposite. Montag, at first, is being ignorant and in denial, but Clarisse, changes his way of thinking. He changes in so many ways. Montag now became less ignorant and more knowledgeable. Clarisse is a positive influence on him.  She loves to talk to Montag, ask him questions about himself, and talking about worldly affairs and its wonderful sites. Clarisse is portrayed as a very unique and interesting girl in the novel,  "...I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them, I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going...Or I listen at soda fountains...People talk about nothing..." (32-33).  Clarisse guides Montag to look around and experience the beauty of nature itself instead of thinking about something else and skip the beautiful parts of life. Clarisse help him see the real happiness behind life, the great beautiful outdoors Clarisse teaches Montag to look around and to pay attention to what is really important in life, just not what his society tells him. Clarisse McClellan helps starting Montag’s hero’s journey.

        Montag found a book at the old woman’s house and could not resist leaving it there to burn. The book that Montag finds at the old woman’s house shows Montag’s call to adventure moment of his hero’s journey. He sees the book and takes it. This experience is his first with a book. By finding this book, Montag becomes more and more interested in finding and reading books and also finds his helper, none other than Faber. Faber is an educated professor who is trying to save books and have the old world back again. Faber still remembers when books were read and not destroyed. Everyone was happy and not brainwashed and glued to the television sets. Meeting Faber, in many ways, changes Montag. He gains lots and lots of knowledge and his ignorance lowers. Montag now knows how to read and be confident after the experiences he has with Faber. In one part, Faber calms Montag down before he went to meet Captain Beatty. Faber says, “ ‘Listen. Easy now,’ said the old man gently, ‘I know, I know. You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by….’” (104) Faber shows the confidence he has in his speech and helps Montag calm down. This increases Montag’s confidence and helps his social speaking skills. 

        Montag reaches his the final stage of his hero’s journey when he crosses the river. This part in the story is very symbolic in many different ways. First of all, crossing the river is a way of cleaning your sins and washing oneself. This can refers back to the epic The Odyssey, in which Odysseus washes up the shore of the Kingdom Fascia. He is washed on shore naked or free of all sins.  Also, in the Christian religion, baptizing someone is done with water and bathing oneself. Montag is bathed in the holy water and is pure and life-like, unlike all of the rest of the civilization who are in a totally dehumanized form of state. Another way how Montag crossing the river is symbolic is because rivers represent life. When he is in the river he is reborn to a more intellectual self. At first, the civilization was no very life-like, but after crossing the river; Montag became full of life and became a new self. Montag at the start of the novel Fahrenheit 451, was an ignorant and lifeless dehumanized creature. As the novel went on, he had many experiences which lead him to live another life, one that actually has a meaning to it., instead of watching television all day and having fake relationships with nonexistent things.