Fahrenheit 451 - Who Is Beatty?

Spoilers for a fantastic novel ahead:

      Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury is a wonderful futuristic novel based on the idea that firemen are book-burners rather than people who put out fires. In this, Captain Beatty fulfils his role as the chief book burner and as one of the most interesting characters in the entire story. Beatty is used by Bradbury to provide story exposition, yet is still more three-dimensional than most other characters, as he has a clear set of conflicts within the one character.


      The story follows Guy Mustag, a book-burner who slowly comes to question his life and role within it. Some characters made this easy for him, others do not. One of the biggest problems for Mustag is Beatty, his boss, who Mustag knows is a very intelligent man and would not be happy with his questioning of things. At first, Mustag tries to avoid showing there is anything wrong and even skips work a few times, claiming to be sick. Beatty knows, however, what is going on. This is because Beatty appears to be a well-read character and had clearly seen the signs of Mustag's curiosity and conflict.

     One of the best scenes in the book, in my opinion, is Beatty's monologue to Mustag when he visits his house. Beatty is hiding a book under his pillow and pretending to be ill, and Beatty goes on to slowly reveal he knows what is happening and explains some of the history of firemen as well as his own past being well read. Beatty talks at length about them doing the right thing and how books are definitely not a good thing, but he uses his well-readness to push this point, causing a major contradiction.

     Because of this, it is hard to know whether or not Beatty can really be considered an antagonist, as it is very easy to empathise with him and see some of his clear flaws. It seems clear to the reader that the contradictions Beatty points out is likely not beyond him to realise himself, so there appears to be way more to the character than is fully explored before his untimely death.

     Beatty's death scene is also an interesting one, as it appears to happen without any argument from Beatty, causing the reader to wonder if he planned to die the way he did, or if he just realised that there no out of it and remained calm. An interesting talking point is whether or not Beatty actually did commit suicide then it adds to a major theme of the story - as the story begins with Mustag's wife attempting suicide, despite claiming to be generally happy.

     This appears to be a point of the book - within a world where intellectual stimulation is discouraged and all pleasures are instant, it would seem that people's lives are actually much worse off, and there are multiple characters, happy and unhappy who can be thought to commit or at least attempt suicide. This becomes more interesting if you were to be able to add Beatty's name to the list. As while Mustag's wife could easily be said to be depressed in her brainwashed and lack of independent thought of a life. There is also the woman who's books the firemen burn, who decides to burn herself along with the books, thinking it better to be dead than to become one of the soulless people promoted in this society. Beatty, then dies calmly as if okay with his own demise. This could be for any number of reasons, as we never get a full chance to explore the character, however, if it was suicide then perhaps the entire monologue he gives about how books cause mental dismay weighed heavily on him.

      It seems clear that Beatty at one point was a big reader. He goes on to explain that books bring questions and intellect and inequality rather than happiness and stimulation. It seems clear that Beatty might believe what is he saying when he explains the problems of of books, but having been well-read, maybe there is part of him deep down that knows it is not what should and is dismayed by this fact. Perhaps he is just disappointed by society having changed in such a way were the value of books did fall and so convinced himself he was in a minority for enjoying them. Either way, the speech certainly gives much food for thoughts.

     Overall, I wanted to point out the importance of this character as there is so much more to him than can be remotely visible in the books, so if you read or re-read the book at any point, I implore you to pay more attention to this character and what is really going on there.

...Thanks for reading.