Usually, the best authors have the ability to make their characters in the story "come alive." Ray Bradbury seems to have this special talent. In one of his novels Fahrenheit 451, he describes a fireman that lives in a fictional so thoroughly people may mistake him for a real human being. Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a futuristic United States. Some main characters in this novel are Guy Montag, Beatty, Faber, and Mildred. In the future, a fireman's job is to burn books, because it is against the law to read a book, or even own a book. Guy Montag, a fireman in the book Fahrenheit 451, has a very interesting personality that affects other characters differently throughout the book.
Guy Montag's character is very complex. On one hand he is very brave. He demonstrates this by having enough courage to stand up against society for what he believes in. Like the time when he secretly places a book in another fireman's house so that fireman will end up having to burn his own house and go to jail. Montag does this because he does not believe it is right to burn books. Montag thinks that eventually, if he plants books in every fireman's house all the fireman will be in jail and no one will be able to burn the books anymore. This plan shows that Montag does not usually think all of his ideas out completely. Another trait that Montag possesses, is that he often acts before he thinks. This quality alone gets him into the most trouble with the government. One time, when Montag gets frustrated, he burns one of his fellow firemen because that fireman was demoralizing him. That instance shows that Montag is a belligerent character. Montag's different personality causes him to interact with people in very different ways.
Montag's uniqueness affects every character in the novel a different way. Beatty, another fireman, sees Montag as a threat to his life of instant gratification because Montag wants society to stop burning books.