Fahrenheit 451 short summary & analysis

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 Analysis

“Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds...”

Think of a world where you die, without reading a book, without pleasure, without thinking. Now think about the book called Fahrenheit 451. That world that I just told is described in this burning book. I call burning because, as anyone who read this book knows that books burn at the temperature of Fahrenheit 451.

Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 as a nightmare scenario of the future, in 1953. It is a despotic book. Ray Bradbury has put the firefighters in a different perspective in the future. Yes, they are still related to fire but instead of extinguishing, they create fire. The burning things are not the same material things as houses or cars. More spiritual, like books that feeds our souls, and they been burnt just because of this reason. Also, the book’s movie has been made too, and in my opinion, it is the best fiction book which its content about the future may be possible.

Fahrenheit 451 Short Summary

Montag is a firefighter who burns books which are the only fulfilling thing in this empty world. He is married to Mildred. He spends his time with burning the books which are forbidden in the country he is living and playing cards with his friends. He does not think about the job he is doing or his life, like everyone else. He is stuck in a life with capsules, mechanical hounds, televisions and other technological tools.

This situation turns upside down when he meets his neighbor Clarisse. This weird girl is living her life unlike everybody else. She sits on the grass, looks at the sky and the most important thing is that Clarisse question things. Montag and others find her odd. Clarisse encourages Montag to think. When Montag starts thinking about what is in those books, he is now one of the people who succeeded to escape from being the Muppet of the system. Despite his wives’ warnings, Montag is a supporter of books and this means an endless questioning.

He has not heard from Clarisse for some time. He feels her absence immediately and after a while he learns that she is dead. This makes him more interested in books. He feels an immense want to read the books. He wants to get the information from Clarisse’s family. The only way is books. Books are not looking so bad after all.

Montag now wants to read the books not burn them. He had kept this secret well until he scared his neighbors away with books, and no one else heard about it except from his old professor Faber and his wife. One day, his wife and wife’s friends gather, and he reads them a poem to prove that books are harmless. But everyone gets uncomfortable and leaves except Montag. Mildred complains about Montag to the fire chief. Montag resists to the man who wants to burn his house and wants him in prison. He burns the man with the hose in his hands and starts to run. After a while, he starts to think that he was just walking without a purpose, until he shows up at Faber’s place.

Montag has to run away now because a mechanical hound which is good at smelling is looking for him. He does not want to risk Faber and with Faber’s address he starts to head towards to river. Following the river, he finds a group that is just like him, runaway group. He decides to act with them. In the meantime, police lost his track and they killed an innocent man and broadcast it on the television, like it was him. Now Montag is a dead man.

Meantime, there is an outbreak of a war in the city. The group which tell each other to the information and that way they are more informed about stuff, are headed back to the city to rescue the remaining people from war.

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