<span>Montag transforms from blind civil servant - the "fireman" who operates blindly to the directions of society to as individual who's every action is an act of civil disobedience. The act of possessing a book, taking a book from a fire, talking to the professor, reading the books and fleeing the city made him a criminal. The reader sees these acts as heroic because he is finding his "humanity". It is the act of disobedience and turning away from the societal norms -- finding something valuable in the pages of something forbidden that makes him a hero.Montag does not see himself as heroic but in memorizing the book of Ecclesiastes so as to save a piece of the past for future generations is brave and heroic act.</span>
Edna Pontellier was a controversial character. She upset many nineteenth century expectations for women and their supposed roles. One of her most shocking actions was her denial of her role as a mother and wife. Kate Chopin displays this rejection gradually, but the concept of motherhood is major theme throughout the novel.
Edna is fighting against the societal and natural structures of motherhood that force her to be defined by her title as wife of Leonce Pontellier and mother of Raoul and Etienne Pontellier, instead of being her own, self-defined individual. Through Chopin’s focus on two other female characters, Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, Edna’s options of life paths are exhibited.
These women are the examples that the men around Edna contrast her with and from whom they obtain their expectations for her. Edna, however, finds both role models lacking and begins to see that the life of freedom and individuality that she wants goes against both society and nature. The inevitability of her fate as a male-defined creature brings her to a state of despair, and she frees herself the only way she can, through suicide.
The simple subject would be stamps.
