Fahrenheit 451 Part 1 Summary

After Montag is finished burning the house down, Beatty arrests Montag. When Beatty begins to rebuke Montag, Montag turns on his superior and with the flamethrower, proceeds to burn Beatty to ashes.

The consequence of this behavior could send Montag to prison, which Montag does not care about. After reading several books Montag talks with his close friend, Faber, and says to him "We have everything to be happy, but we're not happy" .What Montag tells Faber at that moment is really an expression of how he started analyzing more after starting reading books. Although Montag's love life changes and his view of society are changed too, this is not the only change Montag must admit. In the start of the book Montag is delighted in the work of burning illegal books and the homes of where they are found. However, as the book progresses, Montag becomes increasingly disgruntled, as he realizes that he has an empty, unfulfilling life. A point that shows that Montag in the start of the book is happy about his job is when he hangs up his helmet and shines it; hangs up his jacket neatly; showers luxuriously, and then, whistling walks across the upper floor.

Finally at the end of the novel, Montag faces the conflict of everything he has left behind such as his wife, and firemen chief Captain Beatty, which influences him to become stronger and notice that he can create a new life, in where he can be accepted by people who are similar to him. For example, when Faber gives Montag advice to run down the river, he is surprised to see other people that have settled near

Montag gets a first glimpse at his bedroom upon entering before Faber closes the door, “Behind him, the door to a bedroom stood open, and in that room a litter of machinery and steel tools were strewn upon a desktop.” (Bradbury 81). Montag and Faber then go into discussion about books, and a plan to place books into firemen’s home, and then put in an alarm on them. Before Montag leaves, Faber brings him into his room to give him an earpiece to stay in contact. “Faber opened the bedroom door and let Montag into a small chamber where stood a table upon which a number of metal tools lay among a welter of microscopic wire-hairs, tiny coils, bobbins, and crystals.” (Bradbury 90). Montag does not come back to Faber’s until after he kills Beatty, and is on the run. Faber shows him a television screen the size of a postal card, to show him the police chase. After the short visit, Montag wants to protect Faber from the Mechanical Hound, and gives him instructions, “…When I leave, burn the spread of this bed that I touched. Burn the chair in the living room in your room in the wall incinerator. Wipe down the furniture with alcohol, wipe the doorknobs. Burn the throw rug in the parlor. Turn the air-conditioning on full in all the rooms and spray with moth spray if you have it. Then, turn on your lawn

Beatty uses his knowledge to attack Montag after the fireman has made the decision to join the radicals and to oppose the burning of books. Montag returns to the fire station in order to surrender a book, creating the illusion of conforming to Beatty’s expectations. Before Montag has an opportunity to speak Beatty begins to confound him with contradictory statements from

As Montag develops as a character, Faber becomes crucial in helping him to clarify his thoughts, and in giving him direction. Faber is the guiding force of Montag's rebellion; Clarisse was the spark that lit the fire, and Faber helped to direct that fire in a more manageable and healthy direction. As Montag strives to read books, and to understand what their meaning is, he is confused, muddled and frustrated. He senses that they are important, but can't figure out how. At one point he is so frustrated while trying to read on the subway that on a whim, he drops by Faber's house, and pleads with him, “Nobody listens anymore...I just want someone to hear what I have to say...and I want you to teach me to understand what I read.” (82) Faber's voice from then on is in his ear, through the seashell, and Faber helps to tame Montag's thoughts, guide him in the right way, and interpret life as it comes at him. Overall, Faber plays the role of mentor, strengthener, clarifier, guide, friend and conscience. He is crucial to Montag's development and shows that fire represents thinking and new insight.

Faber changed Montag from being a confused man, to an aware, thinking and analyzing person that is deferent from the society he lives in. after killing Beatty, the chief fireman at the station who has read many books and memorized most of them. Montag seeks Faber 's help again, he was confused did not know where to do to escape from the mechanical hound that was running after him. Faber tells Montag to go to the forest, where Montag rested and thought about what happened and whether he did the right thing or not. At the forest, Montag meets a group of men that was lead by Granger; an author who is the leader of a group that hopes to re-populate the world with books.

(STEWE-1) Montag comes to a conclusion that what he does and his own job are wrong,”Montag only said, We never burned right, and then he was a shrieking blaze”(113). This symbolizes that Montag knows they never used fire the right way, they used it to burn when it should be used for something else. Causing Montag to react by killing Beatty. (STEWE-2) While Montag is trying to escape his society. “Watch for a man running… watch for the running man… watch for a man alone on foot, … watch. Yes, he thought where am I running”(118). While running away Montag commits a crime towards the society by putting a book in a fireman’s house and calling in the alarm, just like him and Faber had set up. “And now since you’re a fireman’s wife, it’s your house and your turn, He hid the books in the kitchen and moved from the house again to the alley”(123). Montag has started to commit crimes against the state and run away. (SIP-B) Montag fully rebels against his society and escapes it. (STEWE-1) Furthermore while on the run Montag drops in on Faber to explain to him what is going on, Faber suggests to Montag to go to the river. “One of the rare few times he discovered that somewhere behind behind the seven veils of unreality, beyond the walls of parlors and beyond the tin most of the city”(135). Montag now realizes there is more to everything beyond the robotic

Book-burning is the first thing that is explained about this future based society of Fahrenheit 451. Burning books is the obliteration of the single thought on paper or in one word- censorship. Books are considered evil because they make people question and think. All intellectual curiosity and thirst for knowledge must be quelled for the good of the state — for the good of conformity. Without ideas, everyone conforms, and as a result, everyone should be happy. When books and new ideas are available to people, conflict and unhappiness occur. Some of the many different motifs in the novel Fahrenheit 451 are conveyed through the use of various sardonic lines and connotations planted throughout the book. On the matter of technology and modernization it explains how TV reigns supreme in the future because of the "happiness" it offers. People are content when they don’t have to think, or so the story goes. TV aside, technology is the government’s means of oppression, but also provides the renegade’s opportunity to subvert. Rules and order is another popular topic written into the book. It is stated that “All books can be beaten down with reason.” This was said by Captain Betty, a quote ironically coming from a book itself. Much of the restrictions on the general populous are self-enforced. The government has taken away the citizens’ ability to dissent and marred all dissatisfaction with a cheap version of "happiness," a.k.a. TV. This means

The significance of the opening chapter or intro was to set up a tone and style of the author. The first chapter shows how the story may not be as happy and calm as it may seem. It talks about how cruel the world is and how houses are being burned down because of having books in your home. It was also made to attract the attention of the reader showing that this is different from a fairy tale . This also shows the authors style of imagery because Ray Bradbury is constantly giving extra details making the story a paradox itself because he writes in a way where the story is written as if someone was describing their dream, except the story is opposite from a dream. The opening scene also gives us a background of what may occur in the story because it is an introduction. It introduces the Firemen and what they do.

He finds an ex-professor named Faber, whom he met in the park one day. Faber is reluctant, but finally agrees to aid Montag against the firemen. Faber provides Montag with a two-way radio earpiece. That evening Montag loses his temper and breaks out by reading some banned poetry aloud to his wife’s friends. Which wasn’t such a bright decision. That night at the firehouse, Beatty pokes at Montag by quoting contradictory passages from the same books. Which he’s trying to prove that all literature is confusing and problematic. Then he takes Guy to a fire alarm. Which is very astonishing because it’s at Guy’s

“Then, moaning, she ran forward, seized a book and ran toward the kitchen incinerator. He caught her, shrieking. He held her and she tried to fight away from him scratching,” (63). In the novel Fahrenheit 451 follows the protagonist, Guy Montag, and his interactions with society discouraging and encouraging his discovery of the illegal books. Along the way he understands who are the poisonous people in his dystopian world and who are not; changing his perspective to lose trust in his wife Mildred, from previous quote, and finding safety with Faber, a retired professor he came by one day in a park. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 the author demonstrates the idea that when there is censorship in the world, ignorance will follow because when a subject is hidden from one anything they do regarding it is under the impression of their lack of knowledge surrounding the topic, this becomes more relevant when Ray Bradbury acknowledges the emotions of people who have read books and whom haven't and their general opinions of them.

2. Montag goes to Faber 's house where he learns a new hound is on his trail.

From these three key concepts he also discovered why he had to be the one who had to stop all of the burning in the world when having time to observe and study himself and the world. Another instance where Faber influenced Montag to believe in his beliefs and carry out his actions to defy and change the customs of society, was when he gave a two way working pager to Montag and instructed him, “You’ll have to travel blind for awhile. Here’s my arm to hold onto.” (88) This action indicates that Faber really wanted to help give Montag some wisdom and sense of his own when he went to meet Captain Beatty to turn over his books to start staging his defiance to society. This also further proves that -

(Watt 41). Bradbury reinforces this contrast by causing Mildred to relate only to the subject of herself, while Clarisse's favorite subject is other people. When Montag meets the Mechanical Hound, he discovers that it is a "dead beast, [a] living beast" (Bradbury 24). Donald Watt describes it as a "striking and sinister gadget" and it "is most terrifying for being both alive and not alive" (41; Huntington 113). The Hound becomes "Montag's particular mechanical enemy…[and it] becomes more suspicious of him" as time passes and Montag develops a greater freedom from his society (Johnson 112). Thus, Montag is thrust into the realization that his culture is not flawless, but instead is rife with abuses of human freedoms.