Fahrenheit 451
Why do the books that allegedly promote happiness not help Montag? How does Beatty’s speech lead Montag to read the books that he has stolen at the end of “The Hearth and the Salamander”?
During Beatty’s long speech to Montag, he tells Montag that, above all, “people want to be happy.” He insists that the work that the firemen do—burning books that promote differences of opinion or that might offend one group or another—is all done in the name of promoting happiness. The books that people are still permitted to read, comic books and the like, are legal because they promote happiness. Yet Montag is not happy.