Fahrenheit 451
Character List
Fahrenheit 451
Chronology
Guy Montag is a fireman in the future. Then, everyone has fireproof houses and fireman go around starting fires. It is illegal to own and read books, and anyone thought to be guilty of this charge has their house investigated. If the firemen find books in someone’s house, they burn the books and everything in the house.
Montag loved to burn books. He got pleasure out of it. One night he was walking home from the fire station when he met a girl named Clarisse McClellan. She was his new neighbor. They started talking, and she asked Montag many questions, some of which he didn’t know or wasn’t sure of, which irritated him. He told Clarisse that she thought too much, and she told him that was because she rarely watched the parlor walls or went to fun parks. The parlor was a room in the house where at least one and sometimes all four walls were one big television-like unit. It was kind of interactive because in some shows you could send off for a script. Certain parts of the show would be left out, so you could read your lines and feel like you were actually participating in the conversation of the people in the wall. When they walked past Clarisse’s house, some lights were on. Montag asked what was going on, and she told him her parents were just up talking. He found this strange because in that day and time people just didn’t talk anymore. They were almost always doing something like watching the parlor walls, and meaningful conversation just wasn’t a part of everyday life anymore.
When he got home, he walked into the cold bedroom where Mildred, his wife, lay. He started to get into bed and kicked something as he did so. He did not think about it, but as he looked at his wife laying there, the object he kicked caught his eye in the light. It was an empty sleeping pill bottle that had earlier been filled with thirty capsules. He felt as if his chest had been split in half. He picked up the phone and dialed the emergency hospital. Two men showed up soon with two machines. One machine pumped all the harmful toxins out of Mildred’s stomach, and the other pumped out all her blood and replaced it witch new blood. The next morning when he tried to ask her about it, she didn’t remember anything. He said maybe she took two, forgot, took two more, forgot, and so on until she had had thirty or forty. She asked why she would do a silly thing like that and completely denied the possibility of it ever happening.
When Montag got to work, the Mechanical Hound that the fire department used growled at him like it didn’t like him, but it wasn’t supposed to have any kind of likes or dislikes, just what was programmed into it.
After a while Montag started feeling like he had known Clarisse for a long time and that she made him feel like a father. She said it was because she liked him and didn’t want anything from him. He was starting to feel at ease and comfortable being around her. Clarisse remarked upon how no one talks about anything important anymore. People just have bland, meaningless conversation. Montag listened to the conversation at the firehouse for a few days and realized she was right.
Then Clarisse was gone. He didn’t know what it was, but not seeing her made everything seem empty. He then started thinking out loud to the other guys at the station at the station. He asked what it would feel like if they had their books and houses burned by the fireman. They said that it wouldn’t happen because they have no books, and they blew it off as nonsense. All of a sudden the alarm sounded, and everyone left. When they got to the house, they broke down the door and asked the woman standing there where the books were. She said they knew or else they wouldn’t be here. Beatty, the captain, looked at the telephone alarm card which said they were in the attic. They ran up, found the books, and started soaking them with kerosene. A book fell open into his arms. He looked down, half non-intentionally, and read a few words. He then frantically shut the book and shoved it under his coat. They finished pumping kerosene onto the books and tried to get the woman to leave, but she would not. Beatty started counting to ten, but the woman pulled out an ordinary kitchen match. The firemen ran away, and she lit the match.
When he was talking to Mildred that night, he realized how stupid the parlor was and how wrapped up in it she was. Nothing on the show mattered or connected in any way, but she still thought it was the greatest thing in the world. He found out from her that Clarisse had been run over by a car and killed four days before. That’s why he hadn’t seen her. Montag asked Mildred why she hadn’t told him before and she said because she forgot.
The next morning he told Mildred he was sick. He tried to tell her about why he was sick. Seeing that woman in the house the night before had really shaken him up. Mildred didn’t care, though. He was trying to explain to her why it had shaken him up when Captain Beatty drove up. Montag then remembered he had the book he had stolen under his pillow. While Beatty was trying to talk to Montag about the history of their profession, Mildred was trying to straighten the bed. She reached under his pillow to fluff it, and Montag tried to stop her but could not. She felt the book and Montag told her to go away and sit down. After Beatty talked about why they have to do what they do, he said he had to go. Montag told him he might be in later that night.
After Beatty left, Montag opened up an air conditioning vent and showed Mildred all the books that he had kept. Beatty came back up to the door, but they didn’t answer. Montag then picked up a book and started to read.
Montag remembered a while back when he had sat with a man on a park bench who said he was a retired English Professor. His name was Faber. He had given Montag a card for his file, he said, just in case Montag decided to be angry with him. Montag thought maybe Faber could help him. Montag found the card and called him. Montag asked him how many copies of the Bible, Shakespeare, and Plato were left. Faber said none and hung up the phone. He decided to go see Faber.
When he got there, he convinced Faber to let him in. Montag then showed him the Bible, and Faber started talking about why books are so important. Montag told him how empty he was feeling and that he no longer approved of the burning of books. He told Faber he wanted to burn down all the firehouses and plant books in all the firemen’s houses, so they will get their houses burned. Faber did not want to help him, so Montag started ripping the pages out of the Bible. To get him to stop, Faber said he would help him. Montag gave him the book, and Faber took him into his bedroom. He gave Montag a green, metal object no larger than a .22 bullet. If Montag put it in his ear, Faber could talk to him. This way Montag would feel like he always had someone on his side, telling him not to give in. Also, Faber could hear everything that was said to Montag. If Montag didn’t know how to respond to something, Faber could tell him how to. Montag left and went home.
After being at home for a while, some of Mildred’s friends came over to watch the parlor. Montag tried to start some meaningful conversation with them, but they were just talking stupid gibberish. This made Montag very irritated, and, despite Faber’s words against it, he went and got a book. He and Mildred’s friends argued for a few minutes and then Mildred tried to play it off like every year each fireman gets to bring one book home and show his family how stupid they made people. He agreed, walked over to the incinerator, and tossed in the book. Mildred’s friends were already very upset, though, and made Montag even more angry. He yelled at them to leave, and they did.
Later, Montag went to work. He gave Beatty a book when he walked in. It wasn’t the book he had taken from the woman’s house but a substitute. He felt very uneasy. He had to get up twice in a half-hour during a poker game to get up and go wash his hands. Beatty was talking about how bad books are for a person’s mind when the alarm sounded. Beatty told Montag to come because it was a special case. Montag did not look up the whole trip. When they arrived, Montag looked up, and they were at his house.
He got out and Mildred ran past him. She and one of her friends had called in the alarm. Beatty told Montag to burn the books, so Montag took the flame thrower and burned everything in his house. When he came out, Beatty started yelling at him, and he slapped Montag across the face. The green bullet came out, and Beatty picked it up and shoved it in his pocket. He then smiled a fixed smile, and told Montag to give him the flame thrower. Montag then shot liquid fire all over him. Beatty then flopped over and died. The other two firemen stood motionless. He told them to turn around, and he knocked them out with the flame thrower. The Mechanical Hound then jumped at him. He blew fire on it, but it stuck him with its procaine needle before it shut off. He got up and ran, but it was hard because every time his foot hit the ground his leg felt like it was being shot with a shotgun. He went into his backyard and dug up some books that he had buried earlier.
Montag hobbled through back alleys until he got to a gas station. There, he cleaned himself up. While he was in the bathroom, he heard through the wall that war had been declared. He then left and started for Faber’s house. He could hear on his seashell radio that the police were already on the lookout for him. On his way to Faber’s, he stopped at the house of Mr. Black, who was another fireman. He hid some books in his kitchen, so later the other firemen would come and burn his house.
When he got to Faber’s, they talked about what Montag had done, and Faber told him where he’d better go when he left. He told him that he could go to the river, float down to land, and find out of work professors and teachers walking along the abandoned railroad tracks. He could travel with them. Faber put some clothes in a suitcase for Montag, and then taped it up to keep the smell in. Faber gave him some whiskey to pour on himself later to kill his scent. Montag told Faber that when he left he, he should clean all the doorknobs with alcohol and burn the chair and bedspread that he sat on. He also told Faber to turn on the outside sprinklers when he left.
Montag then started running behind houses towards the river. He stopped at a house to see on the parlor wall how close the new Hound was to him. He saw it stop at Faber’s house look around and then move on. When he made it to the river, he took off his clothes, splashed himself with whiskey, put on Faber’s clothes and shoes, threw his old clothes into the water, and walked into the river until there was no bottom and he was swept away. He was 300 yards downstream when the Mechanical Hound reached the site where he undressed. It then turned around and went the other way as if it had found a new scent.
When he reached the land, he got out and started walking until he got to the railroad tracks. He followed them until he saw a small fire with some men gathered around it. He watched for a while until one of them saw Montag and told him to come over there. They knew who he was and the one who seemed to be the leader introduced himself as Granger. They gave him something that would change the smell of his body chemistry so the Hound could not recognize his scent. They watched on a small television as the Hound killed some innocent victim that was supposed to be Montag. They did this so the citizens would not be frightened that a criminal was on the loose. They asked him if he remembered anything that he had read, and he said he had read the Book of Ecclesiastes and some of Revelation, but he didn’t remember them. They said as long as he had read it he could remember it. They said they only had one other person who knew the Book of Ecclesiastes, so he was this person’s backup. If something happened to him, Montag was the Book of Ecclesiastes. They told him that they were all in trouble in some way, so walk along the tracks hoping one day to come out of hiding and help people to start reading and thinking again.
Later, the first bomb in the war struck the city. Its force threw all the men to the ground and held them there for a while. It destroyed the city. There was nothing left. Mildred was dead, but Faber got out. He took the five A.M. bus out of the city. After that, they started a fire and cooked and ate some bacon. They then put out the fire and started walking. They walked silently along the river because they knew there was everything to think about much to remember. Perhaps later they would begin to talk about what they had been thinking. Perhaps later everyone would begin to talk about what they had been thinking…again.