Fahrenheit 451 - The Old Lady That Died

Right before Guy Montag goes nuts and loses it. He is about to burn down this house full of books. Walls and walls and walls of books. All of these belong to this little old lady. She is absolutely horrified he precious books are going to be burned. This is not not crazy cat lady type of person but a regular person just like you and me. But she has a ton of books. Any way shes so sad that her books are going to burn. As the Firemen spread gasoline every where and prepare to burn the house down to a crispy pile of burned paper she begins to do something very odd. Rather than running to get out of her house and save herself she pulls out a lighter. All the firemen get really nervous since there is gas every. One false move and the whole place could go up in flames with each and every one of them along with it. This is the point where the scene begins to take on the symbolic qualities that make it stand out so much in the book. The old lady tells all of the firemen to get out of the house unless they wish to die along with her and her books. At first the firemen try to reason with her. Telling her she would only be in custody for a short while and she could be back out in the world again. But she has stopped listening to reason at this point she becomes almost hysterical. I am pretty sure at one the firemen even say she an keep her book if she really wants to but she still says that they need to get out because pretty soon she is going to drop the lighter and the whole house is going to go up in flames. The firemen finally oblige with her wishes, jsut as they get out of the door the whole place goes ablaze with her inside of the old building surely dead by now.