Fahrenheit 451 Book Review Essay

Kindle or hardback, that is the question! I often hear the older generations talk about how they like to feel a book in their hands, and sometimes the weird ones talk about smelling a book. Does a book really smell? Now picture a world where books are not debated between electronic reading or good old paper books, but reading is outlawed. Do you think it is possible for the world to shun books and focus so much on the electronic world that we eventually do away with books too? Could we someday rely on the computer, television and media to teach us? Maybe even cut books off completely. Now try to imagine this in the 24th century, but instead of people shunning books, they are burning them. In the book “ Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, it has

all of those things. Fahrenheit 451 is about a man named, Montag, who is a fireman. Not the kind of fireman you know of, he is the kind that burns books, instead of saving homes and lives. Montag is a good citizen who has it pretty well off. He is in his thirties and lives alone with his wife. Fahrenheit 451 takes us through the evolution of Montag and his willingness to blindly follow society, and then to question all he thought he knew. Inside the book Fahrenheit 451 it discusses an important step in Montag's life, which is Montag’s awakening to the corruption of society.
In the beginning of Fahrenheit 451, Montag says that he does not appreciate books and that it is a pleasure to burn books. At first, Montag is like every other citizen in the town, and has no desire to read a book. He has the community average of three t.v.s and is content with his achievements and his life.

Early on in the book Montag meets a neighbor, by the name of Clarisse McClellan, a kindhearted teenager who likes conversations and is a very smart girl. Up to this point, Montag is content to continue living the way he has always lived. However, in a conversation with Clarisse, she asks him, “Are you happy?”. This sparks in Montag a question that he has never before felt. He has never asked questions or had thoughts of his own. Clarisse sees herself in a way that is different from society. She tells Montag what people think of her, “I'm antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange. I'm very social indeed”. Clarisse understands that there is more than one way to perceive something, she tells Montag that “It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this”.Clarisse has found that people only want to talk about what society wants them to. Clarisse speaks to Montag of his personal life, about being a fireman, to awaken Montag to think on his own and see the world for what it is. Clarisse sparks a huge change in Montag's life for the better. After Montag's meeting with Clarisse, he comes home to his wife unconscious on the floor.

Mildred, his wife ended up overdosing on tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Montag again considers the statement from Clarisse, “Are you happy?”. Was Mildred happy? Does happiness lead to following others without question? Who does Montag know that is happy? Clarisse says, “It was a pleasure to burn”. This statement speaks a lot to the fact that to burn does not make a person unhappy, anymore than following society without thinking leads to happiness. Mildred tries to run from her unhappiness through suicide and this again awakens questions in Montag’s mind. Montag hears that Clarisse has been in a car accident and again questions everything that he knew. A little bit after Clarisse's accident, Montag steals a book stirring in him even more questions. In one speculation on happiness, Montag states, "We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I'd burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help".Shortly after this, Captain Beatty his boss, gets a little suspicious. He tells Montag, “At least once in his career, every fireman gets an itch. What do the books say, he wonders. Oh, to scratch that itch, eh?” and tells Montag many times that books are not about real people or real things and are unlawful.
At this point, Montag has chosen to “scratch that itch” and totally changed his point of view. He moves from hating books, to going against the law and stealing books. He is driven by the words and heroics of a teenage girl and an old womans. These two epic figures in Montag’s life sacrificed all they had to learn and grow from the books that society said were evil. When the old woman chose to burn with her house and her books this left a great impact on Montag. It changed Montag dramatically to know that she would choose to burn with her house and books, because books were so special to her. It would be one thing to learn that the old woman burned in her house with her books, but to add fuel to the fire so to speak, Montag is one of the firefighters called to burn the house. Through the storm comes the rainbow and Montag has been through a storm with Clarisse and the old woman. Thus, Montag's life in a way changes for the better; he loses a dear friend in Clarisse, separates from his wife and watches the old woman burn in her house. To go through so much in a short time would be tragic, but Montag finds an odd sort of happiness through all of this. He is awakened to books and with this comes a freedom he never knew. He gets about twenty books in a scant hiding spot, and one is the Bible. As Montag wants to learn more knowledge of books he goes to an old english professor, Faber. Faber guides him in his search for happiness and understanding. He tells Montag, "It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books....The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through radios and televisors, but are not." After Montag meets Faber and his itch grows, he grows increasingly more worried that he will not be able to hide his knowledge from Captain Beatty. How would Captain Beatty react to his knowledge of books? Montag is afraid he might crack under pressure. Faber is smart and tells Montag to wear an earpiece, so that the next time he sees Beatty, Montag will know what to say. Montag is starting to rebel against the government and is meeting many new people that are taking him away from the expectations of the town. These people not only make a difference in his life, but also help him become more like himself and not like anyone else.
The last section of Fahrenheit 451 is where Montag must decide what he will do with his whole life adjustment. Mildred decides to rat Montag out to Beatty. Beatty realizes that he must have Montag burn his own house and books with a torch, "Now, Montag, you're a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical." What Captain Beatty does not know is that Montag enjoys burning his house. He loves burning every memory of his wife along with the televisions in their house. While Montag destroys his house he ends up burning Captain Beatty with the torch and knocking out two other fireman in the head, killing all three guys with one weapon and then continues to burn down his house. Montag flees the scene of the crime and goes to Faber's house to have him help him get out of town without the police finding him. In this last part of the book, he ends up running away from the police and jumping into a river. While on his way down the river he found a group of people that appreciate books just as much as he does. This group of people love books so much they memorize a whole book and then burn it so that there is no evidence.
In conclusion, Fahrenheit 451 is about the evolution of a man on his journey through life. One thing that you may not have figured out is that Montag does not like looking in the past and always likes to look for the good happy side of things, better known as the future. As Montag goes through this whole book, his beliefs have changed. His beliefs in the knowledge of books, in the end and the beginning, are altered throughout the book. However, one might argue that he is in fact merely returning to what he knew to be true from the beginning. One momentous thing that happened in this book was all of Montag's new friends and new enemies that he acquired. From these people he was manipulated for the better and taught that there is more to life than blindly following what others say to be.