Unlike
most people in this dystopian society, the old lady is not prepared to go quietly. She's not
prepared to sit back and allow these so-called firemen, these bibliophobic vandals, to destroy
her large, extensive book collection without at least some resistance, however futile.
The old woman cannot defeat the firemen, but she can at least become a martyr to the
cause of knowledge. Her self-identification as a martyr is confirmed by her quoting the dying
words of the sixteenth-century English Protestant Hugh Latimer, burned at the stake as a heretic
during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor.
Montag is deeply disturbed
by the old woman's death. But he's also struck by the sheer bravery of her defiance as the
flames lick around her. He figures that if people are willing to die rather than acquiesce in
the destruction of their books, then there must be something special about them, irrespective of
what the government might say.
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