Pfp By @forgetfulthings On Tumblr

Montag: Uh yeah just let me ask my wife

Mildred: I am your wife

Beatty: I am gay.

Faber:

Faber:

Ok but on a serious note,,,,Beatty & Montag at least had some sort of sexual tension and you can’t deny that. I feel like their dynamic is sort of like rivals/friends to actual friends (last outlet for both of them) and then lovers. The way Beatty continuously teases Montag and just gets all smug when he fucks with him (Ex: Beatty teasing Montag for being afraid of the hound, Beatty continuing to tell Montag about his “dream” about their debate despite it clearly pissing him off) while also making an effort to console him (coming to Montag’s house when he claims he’s sick during part one) constantly just makes me feel like Beatty’s trying to repress his own feelings of both love and rebellion by spouting things he doesn’t truly believe him to both soothe his own anxieties about disobeying his calling as a fire captain while trying to keep Montag in a near yet still distanced spot, trying to get close to him and keep him as a companion while not giving himself away. Montag’s one of the only people Beatty really has a relationship with that we see. Though the others look up to him, Montag’s the only one who’s of constant interest to Beatty due to more curious nature.

Keep in mind this book was written during the 50s, when homosexuality was rarely accepted, and that Beatty also seems to harbor this popular social belief that minorities are constantly pushing to block or ban things that make them angry, implying they’re sensitive or weak or making people unhappy by fighting against bad representation. It would make sense that Beatty has internalized homophobia, believing fighting against the world would cause unhappiness, which he’s been programmed to fight against with fire. If we’re going off the idea that Ray Bradbury didn’t have the LGBT community in mind when he talked about minorities progressing in Beatty’s monologue about happiness (seeing as the LGBT rights movement didn’t really get jumpstarted until the 60s and 70s, and the community wasn’t really widely accepted until the 2010s), their world is similar to to Bradbury’s from the 50s: unaccepting of non-cishets. Beatty’s taunting could be a way to keep Montag away from books, yes, but wouldn’t that also be a way to drive Montag towards them? Pissing him off so he does the opposite of what he’s told? Why would Beatty purposely make Montag unhappy if happiness is his true motive? To protect himself from his own feelings.

I’d also like to mention Beatty’s death. Of course Beatty’s death affected a Montag. He killed a man, and his superior and a man who was close to him (almost like a friend) at that. But Montag also theorizes that Beatty wanted to die. This is where it gets reachy, and bear with me, but I think Beatty had wanted to die for a while. Beatty’d always been testing the waters, quoting books and telling Montag he’d read. His whole monologue about happiness was uncanny, and seemed fake. Like he was trying to fake it for himself, trying to give himself a meaning he felt he didn’t have without the books he’d been conditioned to hate. He was the chief, he couldn’t read and betray his team. If the only thing he wanted was something he could no longer have and things no longer felt meaningful to him, felt more like abstract happenstances that pertinent events (Ex: Montag’s pending arrest, Ms. Blake’s death), he had no reason to live. Beatty couldn’t escape his box, but he couldn’t just fizzle out or kill himself. He had a team, he had a purpose, even if that purpose wasn’t his choice or his desire. He had to let someone strong and worthy take him out, someone important not just to him, but to the world; someone who could change things for the better, for him. When Montag pulled out the gun, he appeared shocked for only a second before he began his teasing and challenging. He knew he could get out of this with pride and everything he had and had worked for— everything except for Montag, at least. It was the perfect opportunity. Montag had to kill him because Montag, in his eyes, was the most important person in the world.

On Montag’s side of this, I don’t really have a lot of proof. I’d like to point out that during part one, after nearly shitting himself about the hound, Montag briefly describes feeling like Beatty was touching him? It’s kinda wack, here:

“Montag blinked. Beatty was looking at him as if he were a museum statue. At any moment, Beatty might rise and walk about him, touching, exploring his guilt and self-consciousness. Guilt? What guilt was that?” (Bradbury 30).

Furthermore though, a page later Montag asks, for the first time, about the history of firemen. Beatty was the first person Montag came to with his concerns, the first person he trusted for an answer. He did the same about the hound. In fact, most of Montag’s concerns go to Beatty after Clarisse disappears. He hardly talks to Mildred about his problems and worries. As my English teacher pointed out, Mildred and Guy have a more roommate-like relationship. Guy and Mildred have no memory of meeting, marrying, falling in love, and Guy even mentions he doesn’t know if he’d cry if Mildred died. Personally, going back to the homophobia argument, I think Guy and Mildred might have married out of fear or forced love after first becoming friends. They have a casual relationship, built on living around each other and occasionally enjoying things together, though their beliefs and interests hardly ever line up. That’s why Mildred didn’t have much of a problem leaving when the firemen arrived. Montag was always a friend to her, just one she was legally bound to, that she could leave when she believed his ticket was punched and hers would be too if she stuck around for his antics. She was afraid, unable to stick it out or change like Montag wanted her to. Montag and Mildred cared for each other, sure, but they also realized they would be completely fine apart if something called for it. They could live without each other’s support, something most people truly in love couldn’t. Beatty couldn’t live without Montag, though, and Montag could hardly live with himself after Beatty died. Keep in mind I’m not trying to shit on Mildred, I think she’s really cool and understand why she left. Things were too intense and she just didn’t care enough to endanger herself, she didn’t want to sacrifice a happy life for someone she couldn’t force herself to love in the way she was supposed to and told to, and found solace in her lady friends when she felt Montag was no longer someone she could support. She stuck it out for as long as she could, trusted him until he did something she found unforgivable, invading her life and hurting the people she really did care for in the way she was supposed to for him. I’m just saying that the way she and Montag treated each other wasn’t as close as Montag and Beatty treated each other or even as close as Mildred and Mrs. Bowles/Mrs. Phelps treated each other.