Fahrenheit 451
Independent Novel Study
Allison Sherrer
Allison Sherrer
January 19, 2011
Fahrenheit 451
Plot Summary
Fahrenheit 451, written by Ray Bradbury takes place in a futuristic city. The novel is
based around the life of firefighter, Guy Montag. In these times, fire fighters do not put out fire,
but start them. They burn books, and the houses that they are being read in. Books are not
allowed to be read because people believe that they are full of nonsense and will fill the mind
of the people with bad things, making them question the world. Along with not being allowed
to read, people do not really communicate or have detailed conversations. They watch wall
sized television and are constantly listening to the radio through their sea shell ear buds. While
walking to the fire station one night, Montag meets a 17 year old girl named Clarisse McClellan,
who is unusual. She questions life, Montag’s job, why books can’t be read, and according to her
family, she’s crazy. She does things no one else does, like catching snowflakes with her tongue
and shaking nuts out of the trees. Clarisse intrigues Montag and he finds himself wanting to see
her every day, and it makes him question books and the meaning of his life.
The night after Montag’s strange encounter, his wife Mildred, takes a whole bottle of
pills in an attempt to commit suicide. He calls 911 and two men come to their house and hook
her up to two machines and “clean” her blood. Mildred wakes up the next morning with no
recollection of the night before and when Montag tells her what happened, she replies with,
“no I would never do something like that.” Montag leaves the conversation at that, not pressing
any further. The next night at work, the station gets an alarm called in about a woman who’s
suspected of having books in her attic. When they arrived and searched the house, sure enough
they found books. When the fire fighters were done soaking the attic in kerosene, they cleared
out, but when they tried to get the woman to leave, she refused. She said that if the books
were being burnt, then so would she. Right after saying this, she showed them she had a match
in her hand. Everyone left and as soon as the last man exited the house, it went up in flames.
Montag couldn’t get the image of the burning woman out of his head and didn’t understand
why the books were so important to her. This curiosity lead him to steal one of the books from
her home. Laying in bed that night he kept thinking of the woman and it began to make him
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January 19, 2011
sick. He still wasn`t feeling well the next morning so he didn`t go to work. Mildred tried to
convince him to go to work, and in the midst of this, tells him that Clarisse had been killed. This
rattled Montag but he didn't have much time to think about it. Beatty, the chief, came over to
check on him. Beatty went on a rant about how everyone gets curious about book, but after
reading one they realize the uselessness and the conflict they cause. After Beatty leaves,
Montag, still thinking about reading, calls an old professor he once met at a park. This man’s
name was Faber, and after calling him, goes to his house for a visit. Faber and Montag talk
about how they want to start reprinting books, and planting them in the houses of firefighters
to stop censorship. When Montag gets home, Mildred has two friends over and by mistake
Montag starts to quote books and ramble on. The friends start to get nervous because they
realize what he was doing. Both friends get up and leave in a hurry because they don`t want to
risk being associated with a book reader.
On Montag’s next shift at the station, and alarm goes off and they all head out to the
house. Montag is shocked when they show up in front of his own home. Just as they pulled up,
Mildred ran out of the house with a suitcase, hopped in her car and sped away. He couldn’t
believe his own wife had called in the alarm and was now leaving him. Beatty demands that
Montag burns the books himself with the flame thrower. He does as he’s told, but when books
have went up in flames and disintegrated, Beatty tries to arrest him. Something inside Montag
snaps, and he turns the flame thrower onto Beatty. The fire engulfs Beatty, killing him and
leaving nothing but a pile of ashes. He knocks out the other two men and takes off for the
bushes where another stash of his books lay. After quickly grabbing them, Montag starts to run.
On his way to Faber’s house, he plants books in the house of a fellow fire fighter, and calls in an
alarm from a nearby pay phone. Once at Faber`s house, Faber turns on the TV, revealing the
chase for Montag. Helicopters and electronic hounds were on his trail, and the chase was being
followed by cameras. Montag gives Faber money, so when he reaches a printer he has enough
money to pay for the books. After handing off the cash, Montag asks Faber for some old clothes
to mask his scent. He also tells Faber to wipe down his house and start the sprinklers, so they
couldn`t tell he had been there. Montag runs for miles, floats down a river and then ends up at
rail road tracks. These tracks were the site of book readers, who were wanted. They had all
Allison Sherrer
January 19, 2011
read books because they believed reading was educational and would improve the lives of
people. Soon after meeting they begin to travel to the city, but are slowed down, when jets
bomb the city turning everything into ash. They very thing Montag had based his life around,
fire, had destroyed the entire city in one quick motion. The group continues on with the hopes
of rebuilding a better, more educated civilization, where people are given the right to read
anything they desire.
Theme: The theme of this novel is censorship. Censorship is the controlling of what people can
and cannot do. In this future city, people are not allowed to read, but they also seem to not
have an interest in it. They have better things to occupy their time with, like television, radios
and fast cars. Every person has a different explanation as to why books are banned, and to me
Beatty`s sums it up the best. He says that books are written about conflicting topics. Some
topics offend others and this cause an outrage. If people didn`t read books, they wouldn`t face
the risk of this outrage, and the people being unhappy.
Major Conflict: The conflict in this novel, is the people like Montag, who are going against the
rules of society and are reading the books. They risk their lives and homes by doing this.
Allison Sherrer
January 19, 2011
Quotations
"Fire is bright and fire is clean"
This quotation to me sums up the novel and the reason why they burn books. Books can be
filled with whatever the writer chooses. Some maybe offensive and conflicting to others, and
the only way to stop this from happening and creating a bigger problem is to get rid of them.
Burning completely eats up the paper leaving no trace it ever existed, creating no problems.
Fire burns clean.
"So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life"
Some books are controversial and not everyone believes they should be read. This is part of the
reason books are banned. They don't think people should have to much information that will
cause them to question the world.
"We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren`t happy. Something’s missing"
In this city, the people have very limited social interaction. This is what I think is missing. They
have many sources of entertainment, but never have that connection with people or really get
to know someone. They also are limited to what they're allowed to know. This is why they have
such curiosity in the books, they want what they can't have.
Character Growth
Protagonist: The protagonist in this novel is Guy Montag. In the beginning his is a model citizen.
He doesn't seem to have an interest in reading because he is a firefighter. As the novel
progresses, and Montag meets Clarisse, his perception changes. He starts to kind of live on the
edge and become curious about things. Especially reading. He starts stealing and hiding books,
which eventually leads to getting caught. After getting caught, he completely changes. He goes
from being a calm man, to a crazy one. He kills Beatty and takes off. At the end of the novel he
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January 19, 2011
realizes that reading can have a wonderful effect, and I shouldn't be censored. He hopes that in
the future, reading will be a part of everyone's lives, not burning.
Faber: Another character who grows throughout the novel is Faber. When Montag first met
him at the park, he was a quiet man quoting books. After threats of being caught he had
stopped reading. When Montag had called him and they met up, Faber started to become
braver. He decided to take a stand again the firefighters and print books. Even though you
never find out if Faber does get to the printer, you are left with the impression that he is going
to try his hardest to get the books out there, and isn't afraid of the firefighters anymore.