Themes In Fahrenheit 451

Decent Essays
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, is set in a dystopian society. The government’s main belief is happiness is the result of everyone being equal. The government believes that certain books should be forbidden because those books bring false, individual ideas, which make people unhappy. Guy Montag is just like every other fireman: he does not read the books, just burns them. Then one day, he meets Clarisse, a young girl, that challenges his viewpoint of life. After several conversations with her, he begins to question the government’s ideals. He starts stealing and reading the forbidden books, and he begins to understand the purpose of those books. Montag then meets up with an old friend, and they make plans to start a revolution by…show more content…
In a conversation with his wife, he said, " ‘There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing’ “(Bradbury 51). By saying this, he is showing that the old woman really got to him. The woman challenged his viewpoint of books by staying in her house because she believed the books were more valuable than her own life. After witnessing this, Montag begins to steal and read the books that he is supposed to burn, and starts to understand their purpose. The old woman’s actions challenged his viewpoint which started his character change. Ultimately, through the first part of this novel, Guy Montag is depicted as a law-abiding citizen but later starts to change when an old woman challenges his viewpoint of books. In the second part, The Sieve and The Sand, Guy Montag starts to understand the true purpose of books and meets up with an old friend to start a revolution. Clarisse dies and Montag is very upset about it. Clarisse was one of the first people that showed Montag the true meaning of life and continued his change. When he is talking to his wife about the meaning of a book, he says," ‘These men have been dead a long time, but I know their words point, one way or another, to Clarisse" (Bradbury 72). Before he met Clarisse, a book was just an object to burn. However, Clarisse showed Montag what the world was truly about. When he
Get Access