Fahrenheit 451 - Had Faber Not Been There

Faber was arguably the most important factor in Guy Montag deciding to rebel against his current life and against the fire station. Faber is an old man, once a prestigious professor at a university. He has now been reduced to an old hermit, just a kindly old man who does nothing but stay in his house all day reading and dreaming of revenge. Guy met him almost a year ago in a park. They had a very strange conversation in which Faber seemed to hint that he had books. It seemed almost like an invitation to a sort of underground resistance group. When Guy began to question everything around him, people, places, rules, society. He needed some one he could turn to for answers and direction. He went to Faber as a sort of instinctual way of seeking out those with more knowledge and experience. It took a while to gain Faber's trust but once he did Guy did not look back. Faber told him that he was right to want to start thinking for himself. Guy asked what he should and Faber told him the most amazing thing. Guy should do whatever he wanted, nobody can tell you how to live your life but yourself he said. Faber set Guy on to the path of thinking for him self. Rather than telling Guy how he must do it he let Guy figure it out on his own. A vitally important step to Guy deciding he wanted to live with the Hobo's. If Faber had not been there Guy may have gotten the courage to change everything he stood for. He may not have even began to question his own life and the way he was living. Faber changed the entire story for the better without him the story would have been about a guy who burned books and nothing more. Faber made everything in the story happen. Faber was vitally important to the story.