F451 Assignment #9

"One of them had to stop burning. The sun wouldn't certainly. So it looked as if it had to be Montag and and the people he had worked with until a few short hours ago. Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people's heads, any way at all so long as it was safe" (Bradbury 141). Montag was finally realizing the actual importance of history being written down, and the importance of the firemen becoming aware of the damage they were doing. By burning books, they were burning all memories and events that did not exist anymore other than in these books or stories. Montag was beginning to believe that the fact that he had helped to destroy all this evidence of the past would continue to haunt him throughout his entire life. In order to avoid this, he was going to be sure that this destruction of the past did not continue and that people began keeping record of events that took place again. Later that same night, we saw the first example that Montag's previous job may have begun haunting him: "He saw the fire ahead. The fire was gone, then back again, like a winking eye. He stopped, afraid he might blow the fire out with a single breath...That small motion, the white and red color, a strange fire because it meant a different thing to him. It was not burning. It was warming...He hadn't known fire could look this way. He had never thought in his life that it could give as well as take. Even it's smell was different" (Bradbury 146). He was looking at this fire in a completely different light than he had only a few days earlier. He was now aware that fire was not only meant to be used to destroy, but it could be used for good. It could be used for warmth and light, it could even cause happiness rather than feelings of loss of knowledge and even death.