If You Really Knew Me

Beatty is a man of many words. A complicated problem from the time he is introduced to the time Montag torches this malevolent fool alive. Bradbury uses contradictions, Irony, sarcasm and many other literary devices to describe Beatty. 

Here is an example of metaphor: “who are a little wise, the best fools be”. Beatty is well known for his trickery and confusing ideas. He is comparing wise people to being the best known fools of are time. Wise people try to make everything confusing by expressing how intelligent they are. Some wise men talk higher above most men; therefore no one but them understands what they are trying to say. When people get confused they get annoyed. When people get annoyed, they get angry. When people get angry, we have war. Thus wise men cause war, making them fools. Best description that came to mind.  This kooky idea is a little amplified, but, you get the idea.

“‘Well,’ said Beatty, ‘ the crisis is past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold. We’re all sheep who have strayed at times.’” This is an example of an elusion. Beatty gives you something to think about.  When something bad happens, people flee, just as a sheep would if it were in danger. Also, people have strayed at one point in time. Montag was in danger of being lit on fire for reading book, which is illegal to do at this time. Montag quit his job and never told Beatty. When Montag walked into the fire station, Beatty thought he was coming back to work because his sickness had pasted. Montag is the sheep that has strayed from his job because he was in danger and afraid of Beatty. But as Beatty said in the quote, “the sheep returns to the fold after the crisis passes.” The crisis being the reason Montag hates his job.

These two quotes are just a scratch of what Beatty’s character is like. Beatty uses obscure conflicting ideas to show how much he loved to read at some point in his life. Beatty uses this type of dialogue to show Montag how useless reading books can be. Beatty is the antagonist, which makes the story more interesting. This means of evil adds flavor to the entire story. He is a problem that can’t seem to be resolved. The story seemed to over due this mans intelligence. He’s a hard man to understand because of his way of thinking. In conclusion, these two quotes explain that Beatty has the mentality of a college professor. Books really do help with everything you do. However this malicious man seems to think books are against people. Beatty is the problem in the story. This makes up a big portion of the theme of the story.