Fahrenheit 451

The novel opens as Guy Montag sets a house ablaze. He’s a 30-year-old fireman whose job is to burn books in his nameless North American hometown that has banned most literature. It’s a job he does with unquestioning satisfaction: “His eyes [were] all orange flame with the thought of what came next” as he ignited the house “in a gorging fire” (4). Montag completes his task and returns to the town firehouse to shower before the end of his shift.

Montag home on “the silent, air-propelled train” (4), reaching his neighborhood in the early hours of the morning. Montag suspects someone’s watching him. When he encounters a teenage girl on the sidewalk around the corner from his apartment, it confirms his suspicions. Montag is taken aback by the girl’s appearance, “[her] eyes, so dark and shining and alive” (5). She is Clarisse McClellan, the teenage daughter of his new neighbors.

Clarisse asks Montag if she can walk with him and engages him in conversation. She questions him on his occupation and the origins of his work: “Do you ever read any of the books you burn?” (6) Clarisse makes it known that she’s more interested in people and nature than technology, and while Montag finds her questions unsettling, he’s strangely drawn to her. He’s surprised to hear that she likes to talk—a trait he considers irrelevant. She often speaks with her family, whom she describes as “most peculiar.” They reach Clarisse’s driveway, and Montag is surprised by the apparent signs of life emanating from her home. Before she leaves, Clarisse questions Montag’s state of mind: “Are you happy?” (8).

Montag arrives home, and the ventilator grille in the hallway momentarily distracts him. He remembers that there’s something hidden behind it. He enters the bedroom and discovers his wife, Mildred Montag, unconscious. In her ears, she’s sporting a pair of “little seashells” (9), an audio device that works like earphones, feeding Mildred with music and entertainment. Mildred has overdosed on sleeping tablets, and Montag calls the emergency services.

Two cigarette-smoking medics arrive and give Mildred a complete blood transfusion. The following morning, Mildred has no recollection of the previous night. She denies taking an overdose and doesn’t want to discuss it. She’s tired and hungry, but otherwise fully recovered. Over breakfast, the two argue about Mildred’s desire to have a fourth TV wall installed in the parlor. Montag claims it would be too expensive, but Mildred thinks her husband is not considering her feelings. She believes another wall would transform the parlor: “If we had a fourth wall, why it’d be just like this room wasn’t ours at all, but all kinds of exotic people’s rooms” (14).

Montag departs for work and once again encounters Clarisse. It’s raining, and the teenager is playfully looking up at the sky, allowing raindrops to fall on her face. Clarisse calls herself crazy and adds, “The rain feels good. I love to walk in it” (15). She picks a dandelion and uses it as a prop in a simple game to determine whether either of them is in love. Montag resents Clarisse’s assertion that he’s not in love but has a hard time picturing his wife, Mildred.

Clarisse tells Montag she’s on her way to an appointment with her psychiatrist. She’s forced to go because she tends to think freely. Montag compares Clarisse to Mildred, and despite his neighbor’s odd behavior, he concludes that, although Mildred is 30, Clarisse appears “so much older at times” (16). Clarisse points out that Montag is unlike any other fireman she’s met. He’s attentive and pays attention to her when she’s talking.

Clarisse leaves for her appointment, and Montag contemplates their encounter before mimicking Clarisse’s behavior by tilting his head back and drinking the rain. At work, Montag attempts to touch the Mechanical Hound. He’s “fascinated as always with the dead beast, the living beast” (17). The Mechanical Hound growls at Montag, warning him off. Montag joins his fellow firemen for a game of cards and declares that the Hound doesn’t like him. His superior, Captain Beatty, dismisses his suggestion and points out that the “[Mechanical Hound] doesn’t like or dislike. It just functions” (19). Montag worries that he’s a target for the Hound, a tool that “guarantees the bulls-eye every time” (19), and Beatty starts to suspect that Montag may be hiding something.

Over the next week, Montag encounters Clarisse every time he leaves the house. He sees her “shaking a walnut tree” and “on the lawn, knitting a blue sweater” (19). She leaves gifts for him on his porch, including a bouquet, and accompanies him on his daily walks to the subway station. Montag feels like they’ve been friends for a long time, and Clarisse confirms it’s because she likes and understands him without expecting anything in return. Clarisse queries why Montag and Mildred don’t have any kids, but Montag can only give a vague response that his wife didn’t want children. Clarisse suspects she’s hurt his feelings and changes the conversation. She describes how she spends her days people-watching on the subway rather than in school and laments how “people don’t talk about anything” (21).

Montag doesn’t see Clarisse again and struggles through his next few shifts in the firehouse. His paranoia over the Mechanical Hound grows, along with his fears that Beatty’s getting suspicious. During a card game, Montag openly questions whether the crew was right to burn down a man’s library during a recent call-out. He also enquires about the origins of firefighters, and if it’s true that it was once their job to put out fires rather than start them. Beatty, along with Montag’s fellow firefighters, Stoneman and Black, is quick to shut Montag down by showing him an old firefighting rulebook which confirms their mandate, a decree established in 1790 that commands them “to burn English-influenced books in the colonies” (23).

The fire station alarm punctuates the conversation, and Montag and his colleagues race in the Salamander (firetruck) to a house across the city. They encounter an elderly woman at the property whose neighbor has reported her for hoarding books. She doesn’t try to leave, despite flouting the law, and is impassive as the firemen clamber into her attic to destroy the books. The woman has packed literature into the tight space, and in the ensuing chaos, one of the books finds its way into Montag’s possession. He can’t resist temptation and deftly stashes it under one arm. The crew covers all the books in kerosene, and Beatty orders the elderly woman to abandon her property before they burn it down. She refuses to leave and instead does the firemen’s job for them by setting her property alight with a match. She dies in the blaze.

Montag returns home later that evening and carefully hides the book he stole under his pillow. Mildred doesn’t notice. Unable to sleep, Montag looks at his wife, who’s also awake and using her audio seashell to tune in to distant voices: “Her eyes wide and staring at the fathoms of blackness above her in the ceiling” (28). Montag disturbs Mildred and asks if she recalls when they first met. Mildred can’t remember and retreats to the bathroom to take a few more sleeping tablets. The sound of Mildred swallowing the pills causes Montag to relive her recent overdose, and he realizes that if she’d died that night, he would not have cried, for he doesn’t know Mildred. The thought of not crying at his own wife’s demise brings tears to his eyes. Montag considers the parlor walls in their apartment to be a symptom of his distant relationship with Mildred. He refers to the characters on the screen as “gibbering […] tree apes that said nothing [...] and said it loud” (29).

Mildred turns on the video wall, and loud and elaborate set pieces spring forth from the walls, juxtaposing the rest of their conversation as Montag tries to reason with Mildred. He tries to make her see that the stories she’s watching are a waste of time, “that nothing’s connected up” (30). His pleas fall on deaf ears. Later that night, Montag asks Mildred if he’s seen their neighbor, Clarisse. He learns that Clarisse’s family has moved away and that Clarisse is probably dead, “run over by a car” (31), although Mildred isn’t sure of this. The following morning, Montag feels ill. He asks Mildred to turn off the video wall in the parlor, but she doesn’t want to: “That’s my family” (32), she argues. Montag asks Mildred to call Captain Beatty and tell him he won’t be at work today, but Mildred suspects he’s feigning illness. Montag, frustrated, sits up in bed and chides Mildred over her obsession with the video walls before telling her about the elderly woman who sacrificed herself at “the burning” the previous day. Montag feels that “there must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house” (34). Mildred is unsympathetic and dismisses the old woman as “simple-minded” (34). She tells Montag that he should already be at work.

Montag ignores his wife and instead contemplates the true nature of books and the men who wrote them: “I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up” (35). Montag gets out of bed and takes this line of thought to its logical conclusion: “And then I [come] along in two minutes and boom! It’s all over” (35). Montag asks Mildred how long it’s been since something truly troubled her, but before Mildred can answer “a Phoenix car” (35) pulls into the couple’s driveway. Beatty is behind the wheel.

The front door voice (doorbell) calls Mildred’s name, and Montag instructs her to answer the door as he retreats to his bed and checks the book is safely concealed. Mildred, against Montag’s better wishes, allows Beatty inside. He orders Mildred to “shut the ‘relatives’ up” (35) and takes a seat near Montag’s bed.

Beatty lights a pipe and calmly enquires about Montag’s health. He already suspects that Montag is planning to take the night off and even suggests that it might be a good idea. He points out that “every fireman, sooner or later, hits this” (36). Beatty “settles himself” (36) before delivering a speech that touches on both the true origins of firefighting, which confirms Montag’s earlier suspicions in the firehouse, along with a wide-ranging explanation of why their work is so important. Beatty points out that the role of the fireman changed because society must work for everyone, “including the minorities in our civilization” (38), and not just the smartest people in the room. He argues that books pose too many questions, stereotype minorities, and are a cause of internal conflict. He sums up the firemen’s repurposed role “as custodians of our peace of mind (39). Beatty points out that censorship didn’t begin with the government but with the people. The system makes people happy.

Mildred busies herself during Beatty’s speech and tries to fluff Montag’s pillows for him. She almost reveals the hidden book, but Beatty doesn’t seem to care. Montag learns from Beatty that the government has executed Clarisse for being different. Before leaving the apartment, Beatty implies that he knows Montag has stolen a book, and it would be in his best interests to give it up when he shows up for work later that day. Montag has no intention of going to work, and after Beatty leaves, he reveals his secret collection of books to Mildred—hidden behind the grille of the air conditioning unit in the ceiling.

As the books tumble to the floor, Mildred begins to panic and grabs one of them before dashing “toward the kitchen incinerator” (43). Montag stops her and tries to appease Mildred. He asks her to read the books with him and tells her that if they haven’t discovered anything useful after 48 hours, they’ll destroy them together. Mildred is fearful. The front door voice sounds again, and Mildred is convinced that Beatty has come back to kill them. Neither of them moves, and eventually, the unwanted guest departs. Montag and Mildred begin to leaf through the pile of books on the hallway floor.