Fahrenheit 451: Captain Beatty

Captain Beatty is another main character in Fahrenheit 451. Captain Beatty is Guy Montag's chief fireman. He is kind of a bully. Captian Beatty realizes early in the book that Guy Montag is becoming curious about books. He notices a change in Guy Montag. Changes like, he does not take part in fun bets, he questions things other people do not question, and he just is not a lot of fun anymore.

The day after Guy Montag steals the book from the old ladies house, Captain Beatty comes to visit him. Beatty guesses that Montag does not want to come to work that day, so he visits him and lectures him about books. He uses a lot of irony in his speech. Captain Beatty also uses a lot quotes from several pieces of literature. This is strange because he is giving a speech on how bad literature is, yet he uses a lot of references from several different books.

Captain Beatty tells Guy that he can keep the book for one day, but he has to burn it the next day or the other firemen will do it for him. So that day Guy Montag and his wife Mildred go through the several books that he stole. The next day he takes one of the books back to work for Captain Beatty. Captain Beatty throws the book in the trash can. He then continues to lecture Guy Montag on how bad books are. He still uses several references from different novels. These references egg Guy Montag on, and they make him confused. They make him angry.

Because Captain Beatty keeps using references from several novels, we can tell that he has read a lot of books. We can figure that he used to have a huge interest in books just like Guy Montag. He may still like books. We do not really know if he still reads them in secret, or if he really does think they should be burned.