Fahrenheit 451 Study Guide

Fahrenheit 451 Plot Summary

Preview of Fahrenheit 451 Summary:

Part I: The Hearth and the Salamander

Guy Montag is a thirty-year-old fireman experiencing an intellectual awakening. For ten years now he has protected the sanity and comfort of the community by setting fire to books. He and his wife Mildred live comfortably in the suburbs of a large city. All Mildred needs to make her life complete is a fourth TV wall, so she can be surrounded by the characters she watches and interacts with everyday in her living room. True, an international war has been brewing, but nobody much cares as long as they're comfortable.

One evening, after having taken great pleasure in burning a house full of dangerous books, Montag meets Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse, a seventeen-year-old "oddball" neighbor, likes to talk about the world around her. She challenges Montag's authority as a guardian of their way of life. She questions his purpose, practically tells him that he cannot think, and asks him, "Are you...
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