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George Orwell’s
1984
, Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World
,Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron,” and Ayn Rand’s
 Atlas Shrugged
, are among the most-read dystopian novels andshort stories o the past century.
Fahrenheit 451
ts squarelyinto this dystopian literary tradition.
Related Historical Events:
Book burning and censorshipeature prominently in
Fahrenheit 451
. Under the Nazi regimein Germany, book burnings o works by “degenerate” authorswere held in public. The 1950s in the United States saw theblacklisting o certain lmmakers, actors, and screenwriterswho the FBI considered Communists, as well as acultypurgings at universities or similar reasons. The 1950s alsosaw the rise o television ownership and the expansion o television broadcasts in the U.S.—perhaps oreshadowingthe ull-room our-walled televisors that Bradbury imaginesin
Fahrenheit 451
.
Extra Credit
Fahrenheit on flm:
 
Fahrenheit 451
was made into a movieby acclaimed French director Francois Truaut in 1966. Anew lmed version has been in the works or over a decade.Ray Bradbury reportedly took oense at the title o MichaelMoore’s controversial documentary,
Fahrenheit 9/11
, thoughapparently not or political reasons.
Background Info
Climax:
Montag’s escape rom the Mechanical Hound; thebombing o the city
Antagonist:
Captain Beatty; the Mechanical Hound
Point o View:
Third person
Historical and Literary Context
When Written:
1947–1953
Where Written:
The United States
When Published:
1953
Literary Period:
Modern American
Related Literary Works:
Many authors have created statesand societies in their works o ction and philosophy. Someauthors have created utopias, or ideal states, with theintention to show how civilization might be improved. Plato’s
Republic
is one o the earliest and best-known utopias, whileSir Thomas More’s sixteenth century work
Utopia
gives thegenre its name. Edward Bellamy, writing at the end o the19th century, imagined an ideal uture society in
Looking Backward: 2000–1887 
. In the 20th century, ctionalizedsocieties requently took on a darker, oppressive aspect.Rather than create ideal societies meant to serve as modelsor improvement, authors instead created dystopias, ornightmare societies, designed to sound a warning aboutmodern society’s problems. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s
We
,
Author Bio
Full Name:
Ray Douglas Bradbury
Pen Name:
Ray Bradbury
Date o Birth:
August 22, 1920
Place o Birth:
Waukegan, Illinois, United States
Brie Lie Story:
Arguably the most celebrated American authoro science ction and antasy, Ray Bradbury grew up in Illinois,Arizona, and Los Angeles. He graduated rom high school,chose not to go to college, got a job selling newspapers, andbegan seriously writing science ction and antasy stories.His rst book,
Dark Carnival
, was published in 1947. Over thecourse o a long and prolic career, he has produced overve hundred short stories, plays, novels, and poems, not tomention screenplays and teleplays. Many o Bradbury’s taleshave been reworked or lm, television, and radio. In additionto
Fahrenheit 451
, his best known works include
The MartianChronicles
,
Dandelion Wine
, and
 Something Wicked This Way Comes
. In 2000 he received the National Book Award orDistinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Key Facts
Full Title:
Fahrenheit 451
Genre:
Dystopian novel
Setting:
An unnamed city in America in the uture
Guy Montag
is a reman who believes he is content in his job,which, in the oppressive uture American society depicted in
Fahrenheit 451
, consists o burning books and the possessionso book owners. However, his discontent, secret even romhimsel, becomes clear ater he meets
Clarisse McClellan
, ateenage girl and his new neighbor, who engages in such out-landish behavior as walking instead o driving and having con-versations. She asks him i he’s happy. When he returns hometo nd that his wie,
Mildred
, has taken a bottle ull o sleepingpills, he realizes that he is not happy. Mildred is saved, but thenext day she has no memory o her suicide attempt. She sits inthe parlor, engrossed in its three ull walls o interactive TV.Back at the re station, Montag is threatened by the Me-chanical Hound, a robotic hunter that can be programmed totrack any scent.
Captain Beatty
tells him not to worry—unless,Beatty adds jokingly, Montag has a guilty conscience. For thenext week, Montag continues to talk with Clarisse and to exam-ine his own lie. One day, while the radio in the re station men-tions that war is imminent, Montag asks Beatty i there was atime when remen prevented res, instead o started them. Thealarm rings, and the remen all head to the house o an elderlywoman whose neighbor has turned her in. The woman reusesto leave her house as they douse it in kerosene. She lights amatch hersel and burns along with the house.In bed that night, Montag asks Mildred—who, as usual,is zoning out listening to her earbud radio—where they met.Neither o them can remember. Mildred tells Montag that Clar-isse has been killed. Haunted by the vision o the old woman’sdeath, and by the news o Clarisse’s death, Montag doesn’t goto work the next day. Beatty visits him at home and delivers along lecture on the history o censorship, the development o mass media, the dumbing down o culture, the rise o instantgratication, and the role o remen as society’s “ocial cen-sors, judges, and executors.” Beatty says it’s okay or a remanto keep a book or 24 hours out o natural curiosity, so long ashe turns it in the next day. When Beatty leaves,
Montag
showsMildred twenty books, including a Bible, that he’s been hiding inthe house. He eels that their lives are alling apart and that theworld doesn’t make sense, and hopes some answers might beound in the books. Montag and Mildred try to read the books.But reading is not easy when you have so little practice. Mil-dred soon gives up and insists that Montag get rid o the booksso they can resume their lives. Montag, however, remembersa retired English proessor named
Faber
whom he met a yearago and who might be able to help. On the subway trip to theman’s house, Montag tries to read and memorize passages o the Bible he’s brought with him. Faber is rightened o Montagat rst, but eventually agrees to help Montag in a scheme toundermine the remen. They agree to communicate througha tiny two-way radio placed in Montag’s ear. When Montagreturns home, his wie’s riends are over watching TV. Montagloses his cool. He orces the women to listen to him read apoem by Matthew Arnold rom one o his secret books. Theyleave, greatly upset. When Montag goes to work, Beatty mockshim with contradictory quotations drawn rom amous books,which point out that books are useless, elitist, and conusing.Montag hands over a book to Beatty and is apparently or-given. Suddenly, an alarm comes in. The remen rush to theirtruck and head out to the address given. It’s Montag’s house.As they arrive, Mildred leaves the house and ducks intoa taxi. She is the one who called in the alarm. Beatty orcesMontag to burn his house with a famethrower, and then tellshim he’s under arrest. Beatty also discovers the two-way radioand says he’ll trace it to its source, then taunts Montag untilMontag kills him with the famethrower.Now a ugitive and the object o a massive, televisedmanhunt, Montag visits Faber, then makes it to the river a ewsteps ahead o the Mechanical Hound. He foats downstreamto saety. Along some abandoned railroad tracks in the coun-tryside, Montag nds a group o old men whom Faber told himabout—outcasts rom society who were ormerly academicsand theologians. They and others like them have memorizedthousands o books and are surviving on the margins o soci-ety, waiting or a time when the world becomes interested inreading again. Montag is able to remember parts o the Booko Ecclesiastes, so he has something to contribute.Early the next morning, enemy bombers fy overhead to-ward the city. The war begins and ends almost in an instant.The city is reduced to powder. Montag mourns or Mildred andtheir empty lie together. He is at last able to remember wherethey met—Chicago. With Montag leading, the group o menhead upriver toward the city to help the survivors rebuild amidthe ashes.
Plot SummaryCharacters
Guy Montag
– A reman and the book’s protagonist. Asthe novel opens,
Montag
takes pride in burning books andthe homes o people who illegally own books. Ater meeting
Clarisse McClellan
, however, he begins to ace his grow-ing dissatisaction with his lie, his job, his marriage, and thepleasure-seeking, unthinking culture in which he lives. In act,he has been secretly hoarding books, without actually readingthem. Ater Clarisse’s death, he eventually begins to read thebooks. From that point on, there’s no turning back, and Montagbegins to take action against his oppressive society.
Captain Beatty
–
Montag
’s boss at the re station.
Beatty
 is a complex character. He has committed to memory manypassages o classic literature, and can quote them at will, yetas a re captain he is devoted to the destruction o intellectualpursuits, artistic eorts, and individual thought. Bradbury usesBeatty to explain how mid-20th-century America becomesthe joy-seeking, irresponsible, unemotional, and intellectu-ally repressive uture world depicted in
Fahrenheit 451
. Beattyclaims he, like Montag, once became interested in books, buthe now endorses instant gratication. Yet Beatty uses hisextensive learning to push Montag past the breaking point andgoad Montag into killing him. Ater Montag kills Beatty, Montagbecomes convinced that Beatty actually wanted to die (thoughit’s never clear i this is true). Beatty is an intellectual wearingthe uniorm o the intellectual’s worst enemy. Perhaps thecontradiction is too much or him in the end.
Mildred Montag
–
Montag
’s wie. She drowns her unhap-piness with pills and a constant barrage o media, ast driving,and other mindless distractions. The day ater attemptingsuicide she has no memory o the event. She and Montag havelost whatever connection they once had.
Mildred
is a hollow
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Fahrenheit 451
 
person—she doesn’t seem to have a real connection to any-one. Instead, she’s devoted to her interactive TV shows. AterMontag brings books home and reads poetry to her riends,she betrays him to the authorities, wanting to preserve her lieo instant gratication and comort.
Faber
– A ormer English proessor who describes himsel asa coward because he did not act to try to change the direc-tion in which society was headed. He uses a two-way radio todirect Montag through situations in which he is too rightenedto place himsel. He provides a counterpoint to
Beatty
’s argu-ments against literature and thought. Faber is named ater aamous publisher (Faber & Faber) and a brand o pencils.
Clarisse McClellan
–
Montag
’s teenaged neighbor. Sheis unlike anyone Montag has met beore. She has no interestin the violent, thrill-seeking pastimes o her peers. She preersto walk, engage in conversation, observe the natural world,and observe people. Her questioning, ree spirit starts Montagthinking about his own lie and his place in society.
Granger
– One o the scholar-outcasts
Montag
meets on therailroad tracks in the countryside. Unlike
Faber
,
Granger
hashad the courage to act on his convictions and leave civilization.He and his comrades memorize works o literature, waiting orthe day when books will no longer be banned and humanity isready to learn rom its past.
Mrs. Phelps
– A riend o Mildred’s.
Mrs. Bowles
– A riend o Mildred’s.
Mass Media
Much o 
Fahrenheit 451
is devoted to depicting a uture UnitedStates society bombarded with messages and imagery by anomnipresent mass media. Instead o the small black-and-whiteTV screens common in American households in 1953 (the yearo the book’s publication), the characters in the novel live theirlives in rooms with entire walls that act as televisions. TheseTVs show serial dramas in which the viewer’s name is woveninto the program and the viewer is able to interact with ctionalcharacters called “the relatives” or “the amily.” Scenes changerapidly, images fash quickly in bright colors, all o it designedto produce distraction and ascination. When not in their in-teractive TV rooms, many characters, including Guy Montag’swie
Mildred
,
 
spend much o their time with “Seashell earthimbles” in their ears—miniature radio receivers that playconstant broadcasts o news, advertisements, and music,drowning out the real sounds o the world.Throughout the novel, Bradbury portrays mass media asa veil that obscures real experience and intereres with thecharacters’ ability to think deeply about their lives and societalissues. Bradbury isn’t suggesting that media other than books
couldn’t 
be enriching and ullling. As
Faber
tells
Montag
, “Itisn’t books you need, it’s some o the things that once werein books.... The same innite detail and awareness could beprojected through the radios and televisors, but are not.” In aninterview marking the tieth anniversary o the novel’s publi-cation, Bradbury indicated that some o his ears about massmedia had been realized. “We bombard people with sensation,he said, “That substitutes or thinking.”
Censorship
Books are banned in the society depicted in
Fahrenheit 451
.When they’re ound, they’re burned, along with the homes o the books’ owners. But it’s important to remember that in theworld o this novel, the suppression o books began as
 self-censorship
. As
Beatty
explains to
Montag
, people didn’t stopreading books because a tyrannical government orced themto stop. They stopped reading books gradually over time asthe culture around them grew aster, shallower, intellectuallyblander, and centered around minor thrills and instant grati-cation. In such a culture, books became shorter, magazine andnewspaper articles became simpler, cartoon pictures and tele-vision became more prevalent, and entertainment replacedrefection and debate.Another actor that contributes to the growth o censor-ship in
Fahrenheit 451
are minorities and what we mightcall “special interest groups.” In order not to oend everyimaginable group and sub-group—whether organized aroundethnicity, religion, proession, geography, or anity—everytrace o controversy slowly vanished rom public discourse,and magazines became “a nice blend o vanilla tapioca.” Intime, the word “intellectual” became a swear word, and bookscame to be seen as a dangerous means or one person to lordhis or her knowledge and learning over someone else. Books,and the critical thinking they encouraged, became seen as adirect threat to equality. By making widespread censorship aphenomenon that emerges rom the culture itsel—and notone that is simply imposed rom above by the government—Bradbury is expressing a concern that the power o massmedia can ultimately suppress ree speech as thoroughly asany totalitarian regime.
Conformity vs. Individuality
Pleasure-seeking and distraction are the hallmarks o theculture in which
Montag
lives. Although these may sound likea very sel-serving set o values, the culture is not one thatcelebrates or even tolerates a broad range o sel-expression.Hedonism and mindless entertainment are the norm, and solong as the people in the society o 
Fahrenheit 451
stick tomovies and sports and racing their cars, pursuits that requirelittle individual thought, they’re let alone by society.However, whenever individuals start to question the pur-pose o such a lie, and begin to look or answers in booksor the natural world and express misgivings, they becomethreats. Their questions and actions might cause others to acethe dicult questions that their culture is designed to distractthem rom. For that reason, in the society o 
Fahrenheit 451
 people who express their individuality nd themselves socialoutcasts at best, and at worst in real danger.
Clarisse McClellan
represents ree thought and indi-viduality. She’s unlike anyone else Montag knows. She has littleinterest in the thrill-seeking o her peers. She’d rather talk, ob-serve the natural world rsthand, and ask questions. She soondisappears (and is probably killed).
Fahrenheit 451
’s society isset up to snu out individuality—characters who go againstthe general social conormity (
Clarisse
,
Faber
,
Granger
, and
Montag
) do so at great risk.
Distraction vs. Happiness
Why has the society o 
Fahrenheit 451
become so shallow,indierent, and conorming? Why do people drive so ast, keepSeashell ear thimbles in their ears, and spend all day in ronto room-sized, our-walled TV programs? According to
Beatty
,the constant motion and titillation is designed to help peoplesuppress their sadness and avoid any kind o intense emotionor dicult thoughts and experiences. The people o 
Fahrenheit  451
have to come to equate this motion, un, and distractionwith happiness.However,
Fahrenheit 451
makes the case that engagingwith dicult and uncomortable thoughts and experiences isthe only routes to true happiness. Only by being
un
comort-able, or experiencing things that are new or awkward, canpeople achieve a real and meaningul engagement with theworld and each other. The people in the novel who lack suchengagement, such as
Mildred
, eel a proound despair, whichin turn makes them more determined to distract themselves bywatching more TV, overdosing on sleeping pills, or letting tech-nicians use a specialized machine to suck away their sadness.The result is a vicious cycle, in which people are terried toexpose themselves to any kind o emotion or diculty becausedoing so will orce them to ace their pent-up despair, thoughin reality it’s their avoidance o those thoughts and eelingsthat creates their despair. Only ater he acknowledges his ownunhappiness can
Montag
make the lie-changing decision tond Faber and resist his society’s oppressive “happiness” andthought-suppression that he, as a reman, once enorced.
Action vs. Inaction
In the years up to and beore World War II, many societies,including Germany, become dangerous and intolerant. Even so,their citizens were araid to speak out against these changes.
Fahrenheit 451
was published in 1953, just a ew years aterWWII ended, and is very concerned with the idea o taking ac-tion versus standing by while society alters. In particular, thenovel shows how
Montag
learns to take action, in contrastto
Faber
who is too cowardly to act. At the same time, Faberdoes help teach Montag the dierence between reckless andintelligent action, so that by the end o the novel Montag isready to act in a constructive rather than destructive way.
 Themes
Fire
Fire is an interesting symbol in
Fahrenheit 451
because itsymbolizes two dierent things. Through the remen, whoburn books and wear the number “451” on their helmets, resymbolizes destruction. (451°F is the temperature at whichpaper and books burn.) Yet at the same time,
Clarisse
remindsMontag o candle-light, and so re, when controlled, symbol-izes the fickering o sel-awareness and knowledge.
The Phoenix
The mythologies o many Mediterranean cultures includethe story o the
 
phoenix
, a bird that is consumed by famesbut then rises rom the ashes. The phoenix is a symbol orrenewal, or lie that ollows death in a cleansing re. Aterthe city is reduced to ashes by bombers in
Fahrenheit 451
,
Granger
makes a direct comparison between human beingsand the story o the phoenix. Both destroy themselves in re.Both start again amid the ashes. I people keep books—whichpreserve the past and allow people to learn the lessons o prior tragedies—Granger hopes that humanity will rememberthe suering caused by destruction, and will avoid destroyingitsel in the uture.
The Hearth and the Salamander
“The Hearth and the Salamander” is the title o the rst sectiono 
Fahrenheit 451
. Both
hearths
and
salamanders
are associ-ated with re. Hearths (replaces) are traditionally the centero the home and the source o warmth. The remen wearsalamander imagery on their uniorms and call their re trucka “salamander” because salamanders were once believed tolive in re without being consumed by it.
The Sieve and the Sand
“The Sieve and the Sand” is the title o the second sectiono 
Fahrenheit 451
. The
 
title reers to
Montag
’s childhoodmemory o trying to ll a sieve with sand. He’s reminded o thisepisode as he’s trying to read the Bible on the subway. Whilehe’s trying to memorize what he’s reading, an announcementor toothpaste keeps derailing him. To Montag, the sand rep-resents the knowledge that he seeks—something o materialimportance—and the sieve represents his mind trying to graspand retain this knowledge.
Symbols
In LitCharts, each theme gets its own corresponding color,which you can use to track where the themes occur in thework. There are two ways to track themes:Reer to the color-coded bars next to each plot point
•
throughout the
 Summary and Analysis
sections.Use the
•
ThemeTracker 
section to get a quick overview o where the themes appear throughout the entire work.Symbols are shown in
red
text when they appear in the
Plot  Summary 
and
 Summary and Analysis
sections o this LitChart.
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Summary and Analysis
Part One: The Hearth and the Salamander 
As the novel begins,
 
Guy Montag
is taking anintense pleasure in burning a pile o books on alawn. It’s his job—he’s a reman. He loves the waythings look when they burn and the way he eelswhen he burns them. When he’s done, he returnsto the re station, changes out o his equipment(including his helmet with the number
451
on it),and takes the subway to his stop.
The opening plunges you intothe different world of the novel.
The job of the reman is theopposite of what we expect— remen
set
res. Montag, theprotagonist, likes his job. Heseems happy, and he doesn’t appear to think there’s anything wrong with burning books.
As he walks home,
Montag
encounters a teenagegirl standing alone. She introduces hersel as
Clarisse McClellan
, a new neighbor, and asks i she can walk home with him. She notes that Montagis a reman, and says that she isn’t araid o him andtells him that reman used to put out res rather thanstart them. Montag nds Clarisse ascinating, butshe also makes him nervous. For some reason shereminds him o an early memory o 
candlelight
.
Based on Montag’s reactionsto Clarisse, it’s clear that she’sunconventional simply for en
-
 gaging him in conversation, but also for the things she knows. Montag’s memory of candle
-
light seems to symbolize theickering self-awareness that Clarisse awakens in Montag.
Clarisse
says that in her amily people actually walkplaces, in contrast to people in their jet cars whodon’t know what the world looks like. She says thatshe doesn’t take part in the entertainments thather peers do. When she tells him that there’s dewon the grass in the morning,
Montag
suddenly isn’tsure i he knew that. When they reach Clarisse’shouse, all the lights are on because her amily is stillup talking. She asks Montag i he’s happy, then runsinside beore he can answer.
The fact that everything about Clarisse is strange to Montag reveals a lot about normality in this society. People are rarely out or even awake at night,they rarely walk anywhere or notice everyday aspects of the natural world, and no oneseems to have deep meaningful conversations.
Montag
enters his own house, troubled byClarisse’s parting question. O course he’s happy.But the image o Clarisse’s ace stays with him,reminding him o doubts he keeps in a hidden placewithin him—his “innermost trembling thought.”
This is the rst hint that  Montag is dealing with inner doubts—doubts that he had managed to hide even fromhimself.
Upon entering the cold, dark silence o his bedroom,which the narrator compares to a tomb,
Montag
 realizes that he is not, in act, happy. His wie,
Mildred
, is stretched out as usual on her bed, withradio earplugs called “Seashells” lling her earswith sound. Montag accidentally steps on an emptybottle o sleeping pills on the foor and remembersthat the bottle had contained 30 pills earlier in theday. He ficks on a hand-held igniter and sees thatMildred is pale and barely breathing.
The description of the bedroomas a cold, empty tomb withseparate beds suggests that  Montag’s marriage with Mildred is dying. Notice alsothe contrast between Montag and Mildred: Montag admits tohimself that he is unhappy, but  Mildred avoids acknowledging her unhappiness and instead 
overdoses on sleeping pills.
Suddenly, a squadron o jet bombers rips throughthe sky overhead, shaking the house with asupersonic roar.
The bombers suggest a threat of war, and that this is a society capable of great violence.
Montag
calls the hospital. Two technicians arrivewith machines—one to pump out
Mildred
’sstomach, the other to replace her blood with resh,clean blood. The pump is also equipped with anEye, a device that allows the machine’s operatorto clean out o the melancholy rom a patient. Thetechnicians chatter while they work, and Montaggrows more upset. They nish, charge him $50, andleave to take another call or a similar case in theneighborhood.
The fact that technicians,rather than doctors, come torevive Mildred’s indicates that suicide is very common in thissociety. The technicians usetheir machines to suck all thesadness out of a person and simply dispose of it like trash.No one addresses or evenacknowledges the underlying 
causes
of unhappiness.
Montag
watches
Mildred
as color returns to hercheeks. He opens the window across the lawn andhears laughter coming rom the McClellans’ house.Montag walks across the lawn and stands outsidehis neighbors’ brightly lit home, listening to theirconversation. The uncle is talking about how peopleare treated like “disposable tissue.”
Opening the windows and eavesdropping on his neighbors’ conversation hints at the begin
-
ning of the process of opening  Montag’s mind. The McClellans’ are happy, and are having areal conversation, about real issues and ideas. .
The next morning,
 
Mildred
has no memory o theprevious night and denies taking the pills. Later,when
Montag
gets ready or work, Mildred is in theTV parlor preparing to watch a TV show that lets herparticipate. The TV lls up three ull walls. Mildredcomplains that they don’t have a ourth wall yet.Montag makes sure the TV program has a happyending beore leaving or work.
 Mildred drowns her unhappi 
-
ness in a constant media blitz.She keeps radio earphones inher ears and spends her day captivated and supercially content, surrounded by an in
-
teractive, three-wall TV. In doing so, she conforms utterly to thesociety around her.
On his way to work,
 
Montag
meets
Clarisse
again.She is walking in the rain, tasting the raindrops andholding dandelions. She applies a childish dandeliontest (rubbing the fower on his chin) to see i Montagis in love—her test shows that he isn’t in love withanyone. Montag is upset and insists that he
is
inlove.
Clarisse earlier forced Montag to think about a big questionhe’d avoided—whether he washappy—now she forces him tothink about whether he’s actu
-
ally in love. Tasting raindrops isa perfect metaphor for interact 
-
ing with the natural world.
Clarisse
tells
Montag
that she thinks it’s strangethat he’s a reman, since other remen won’t talkto her or listen to her. Clarisse’s comment makesMontag eel as i he’s split in hal. But rather thansay anything, he sends her on her way to seeher psychiatrist. The authorities make her seethe psychiatrist because o her tendency towardindependent thought.
Clarisse now also forces Mon
-
tag to face his own individuality by making him see that he’s not a typical reman. But Montag isn’t yet ready to say or doanything about it. Notice how the authorities try to control and silence independent peoplelike Clarisse.
Ater
Clarisse
leaves,
Montag
opens his mouth totaste the raindrops while he walks to work.
 Montag 
has
been affected by Clarisse., though.
At the re station,
 
Montag
looks in on the “sleeping”Mechanical Hound, a robotic creature that canbe programmed to track the scent o an animal(or person), which it then kills with an injection o morphine or procaine. To entertain themselves, theremen sometimes program the hound and let ratsloose in the rehouse and watch the hunt. Montagdoesn’t usually participate. Now, when Montagtouches the Hound’s muzzle, it makes a growlingnoise, shows its needle, and moves towards him.Shaken, Montag escapes to the second foor.
The Mechanical Hound is oneof the more chilling parts of 
the world of 
Fahrenheit 451
.
It’s one of the remen’s terribleweapons, but it’s supposed to be without personality or mo
-
tive—a machine that attacksonly what it is programmed to attack. Yet the Mechanical Hound threatens Montag. Maybe he has something tohide? Bradbury is foreshadow 
-
ing later events here.
Upstairs, our remen are playing cards.
 
Montag
 complains to Captain
Beatty
(whose helmet hasa
phoenix
on it) about the Hound’s threateninggestures toward him. The Captain says theHound doesn’t like or dislike, it just does what it’sprogrammed to do. Montag wonders i someonehas programmed the Hound with his partialchemical ngerprint. The Captain dismisses thisbut says they’ll have the Hound checked out.Montag thinks about something he has hiddenbehind the ventilator grille at home. Out loud, hesays he wouldn’t want to be the Hound’s nextvictim. Captain Beatty asks him i he has a guiltyconscience, looks at him steadily, and then laughssotly.
Captain Beatty is Montag’sboss. Outwardly he reassures Montag, yet there’s a quiet but distinct undertone of threat to what he says. When Beatty stares at Montag, it’s almost asif Beatty can sense what Mon
-
tag is thinking about. Beatty’sphoenix insignia symbolizesrebirth through re—but therenewed world promised by theremen is one without books.This image of a phoenix will be contrasted with another image of a phoenix at the end 
of the novel.
For the next week,
 
Montag
sees
Clarisse
everyday. They have conversations about their riendship,about children, about the smell o old leaves.Montag eels comortable and peaceul. Clarissetells him she’s let school because they thinkshe’s antisocial. She describes the school day toMontag—TV class, lots o sports, making pictures,transcribing history, and memorizing answers. Shealso describes what passes or sociability amongher peers—going to a Fun Park, breaking windows,daredevil games in cars, shouting, dancing, andghting. Six o her riends have been shot in the last year. Clarisse preers to talk, or simply to observepeople and gure out who they are. She eavesdropson conversations. She tells Montag that people talkwithout saying anything.
Bradbury uses the character of Clarisse to describe how massmedia culture has affected the
 youth in
Fahrenheit 451
. Clar 
-
isse’s peers have no respect for their elders and don’t seem tovalue their own lives. They seekpleasure and instant gratica
-
tion, they speed around in their cars and crash, they shoot eachother, and they break things.Their education consists of learning answers without asking questions. In contrast, instead of searching out cheap thrills,Clarisse does what she can totry to understand and engage
with other people.
The color-coded bars in
 Summary and Analysis
make it easy to track the themes through thework. Each color corresponds to one o the themes explained in the
Themes
section. For in-stance, a bar o indicates that all ve themes apply to that part o the summary.
3
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