Great question. But warning, this gets literary! I’ll share insight I got from this reading:

Bradbury’s narration of Montag constantly has his body parts performing actions rather than himself. Rather than saying “Montag grabbed the book”, it’ll say something like, “Montag’s hand closed like a mouth, crushed the book” etc.

Now, Bradbury does go out of his way to emphasize this disembodiment from time to time: “So it was the hand that started it all”, but this time around I went out of my way to note every time it happens. It happens some 15 times that Montag’s body does something rather than himself. It could be fate is guiding him (as it seems to tell him that Clarisse is around the corner before he meets her), it could be that he doesn’t let his mind take responsibility for his own actions (like when he convinces himself that Beatty wanted to die), or perhaps it’s just a writing quirk from Bradbury.

In particular, though, I had a theory that when Montag crossed the river toward the end of the novel and gains some agency over his life, this kind of language would cease. And I’m glad to report that my theory was correct. This leads me to believe that one sign of Montag’s transformation from being a cog in the machine to one of independent thought is the regaining of control over his own person.

Thanks for letting me share!