Blog #2: Pages 37-65

summary:

After the woman burns herself with her books, something changes in Montag. He decides that there must be something significant in books, something important, that causes people to kill themselves rather than to live in a world without them. He steals a book fromt the woman’s house, and hides it. He becomes ill, and cannot work for a few days. Captain Beatty comes to Montag’s house to wish him health, and stays long enough to tell Montag the story of how their society came to be. He says that technology, depersonalization, conformity, over-population, and extreme simplification all led to the burning of books. Seemingly innocently, Montag asks the Captain what they would to a fireman if he were to take a book. The Captain informs him that all firemen get the itch to read a book, and they give him 24 hours to burn it or they will do it for him. After the Captain leaves, Montag shows his wife the book he stole, her extreme surprise and terror is only surpassed when he shows her his stash of books, which he has been stealing and hiding for months. He then explains his mission, that he will read all of the books in the next 48 hours, then he will burn them.

text-to-text connection:

While Jonas, from The Giver, always felt a little different from his peers, something inside him changed when he discovered that his community killed infants if they weren’t to par with their high standards. His sudden change leads him to rebel by wanting more memories, much like Montag’s realization leads him to desire more books. Both characters recognize a flaw in their utopian societies, and they strive to find some humanity and comfort in knowledge.

text-to-reader connection:

The woman who burned herself was extremely inspirational, much like the buddhist monk who famously burned himself for his beliefs. Her story teaches us that your individualism is something worth dying for, a belief that is lost in modern conformity. High Schoolers especially are taught to conform or face many threats. Montag’s rebellion also inspires independence, that one small change at a time can result in a catastrophic change of heart. His small act of defiance represented by his library translates to the small things that I do that make me who I am. Those books represent a hope for a better future, they represent the little quirks that everyone has that makes them an individual.