Sunday, November 4, 2012

How does Faber respond to Captain Beatty's dream?

Guy Montag receives a small listening device from Faber, called a green bullet, that allows the two of them to communicate back and forth without anyone knowing. Montag places the bullet in his ear while Faber listens and can speak to him from his home. It's not unlike the cell phone earpieces used today, but this device hides within the ear canal. This allows Faber to hear Captain Beatty when he tells Montag about the dream he has. The dream centers around Beatty and Montag having "a furious debate on books" (106). As Captain Beatty describes the details of the dream to Montag, Faber can hear every word. Faber can also respond to Beatty so that only Montag can hear him. For example, when Beatty says, "Stick with the firemen, Montag. All else is dreary chaos," Faber counters by saying, "Don't listen. . . He's trying to confuse. He's slippery. Watch out!" (106).


Captain Beatty continues to describe his dream, which is really a debate about how books are bad and the firemen are good. His arguments are very convincing, too; so much so that Beatty affects Montag in the following way:



"Montag's head whirled sickeningly. He felt beaten unmercifully on the brow, eyes, nose, lips, chin, on shoulders, on up-flailing arms. He wanted to yell, 'No! Shut up, you're confusing things, stop it!'" (107).



Faber can hear all of this debate and he knows that Montag is getting confused due to the verbal and psychological beating he is enduring. Faber does his best to calm Montag down since he is not able to be there in person for him by saying, "Montag, hold on! . . . He's muddying the waters!" (107). Before Faber can say anything else, though, an alarm sounds for the firemen to go burn a house down and Faber remains powerless at his home as he waits for another moment in which he can help Montag again. Therefore, Faber's response to Captain Beatty's dream is not to listen to his arguments because Beatty twists facts and words from books to support his own claim against them.

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