Beatty (Fahrenheit 451)
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Captain Beatty is an important character in Fahrenheit 451. He is chief fireman, and the head of the Guy Montag's fire department, in fact — a book burner ("treacherous weapons" as he calls books) but with a vast knowledge of literature.
Beatty is a complex character, full of contradictions. His role as a character is complicated by the fact that Ray Bradbury uses him to do so much explication of the novel’s background. In this respect, Beatty can be said to personify 'The State', in much the same way as does O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Beatty’s entire speech to Montag ("mind-struggling") describing the history of the firemen is strangely ambivalent, containing tones of irony, sarcasm, passion, and regret. At one moment Beatty says he’s tried to understand the universe and knows firsthand its melancholy tendency to make people feel bestial and lonely. He is cunning and devious, and also well-read. In Beatty's dream, he imagines a "furious debate on books" between himself and Montag.
Captain Beatty's Dream Sequence:
Montag: "Knowledge is more than equivalent to force!"
Beatty: "He is no wiser man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty"
Montag: "Truth will come to light, murder will not be hid long"
Beatty: "Oh God, he speaks only of his horse!" and "The Devil can cite scripture for his own purpose."
Montag: "This age thinks better of a gilded fool than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school!"
Beatty: "The Dignity of truth is lost with much protesting."
Montag: "Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer!"
Beatty: "What, do I give you trench mouth?"
Montag: "Knowledge is power!" and "A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees the farthest of the two!"
Beatty: "The folly of mistaking a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself as an oracle, is inborn in us, Mr. Valery once said."