The Classical Anti-Hero - Guy Montag

Name: MONTAG, Guy

Occupation: A fireman

Significant others: Mildred Montag, Clarisse McClellan, Professor Faber

Origin: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury | A futuristic town

Type: Classical Anti-Hero

Heroic feature that he lacks: Cautiousness, Foresight & Leadership

The first anti-hero that I am going to analyze is Guy Montag – the protagonist that we’ve all known from Fahrenheit 451. To me, he is the perfect example to illustrate the idea of ‘Classical Anti-heroes’ that we often come across in pop culture.

Despite the fact that Montag’s story takes place in autumn - which is a season of transition that symbolized the maturating process of a hero; we all have to admit that he is not a perfect hero that bring honor to us all.

Why? Let me break it down for you.

First of all, he is a ballsy character, but sadly, he is also a little reckless at times.

Remember at the beginning of the story, Montag is just one of the ordinary firemen: he is nothing but obedient & ignorant. But after he met Clarisse McClellan, his mind is no longer vacant and stagnant as his companions’; Clarisse came to Montag as a torrent of inspiration & realization. And so, for the first time in forever (as Frozen would have put it), our mighty hero has eventually started to question about what he has done for the last 10 years as a fireman.

But these little sparkles that Clarisse brought to Montag have clearly ignite his fiery heart vigorously. He started to steal books when he was carrying out duties. And he even asked Professor Faber to teach him ‘reading’. Most daringly, Faber and Montag have also outline a plan that “they might start a few books, and wait on the war to break the pattern & give us the push we need” by contacting a unemployed printer. (P.85) This plan should have a high feasibility because a wise man like Faber also agreed that their ‘stage whisper may carry in the silence.’

But Montag had destroyed all of these wonderful plans simply because of his terrible recklessness & unnecessary anger towards Mildred, Mrs. Phelps & Mrs. Bowles.

In P.96, he read the poem ‘Dover Beach’ out loud for the 3 ladies regardless of Faber’s advice. Maybe he has yearned knowledge toomuch that he wanted to share with others, or maybe he wanted to awaken his wife from the ignorance of society…but we all know that this will ruined everything. At the end, Montag was even arrested by Captain Beatty because of this. With this in mind, even though we understand Montag has a good intention to save the people from the dystopia – he lacks essential heroic qualities like foresight and cautiousness – this made him a Classical Anti-Hero.