Farenheit 451 - the Hearth and the Salamander - Characters and Significant Events

Part One: The Hearth and the Salamander- Characters and Significant Events

Guy Montag is an ordinary man in a futuristic American city. He has a home, a wife, and a job he loves and depends on. Montag, the protagonist in this novel, is a fireman who does not extinguish fires, but instead he starts them. He and his department set fire to literature and homes of those who have illegally hidden books. Montag finds his job enjoyable, and finds nothing wrong with his life until he meets Clarisse McClellan ; a soon-to-be seventeen year old whose innocence and curiosity strike him as bizarre and unconventional, and he begins to find something very wrong about his life.

Later that night when Montag returns home, he finds his wife, Mildred Montag, has attempted to commit suicide by overdosing on pills. Frantically he calls for help and he learns that this is a common incident all over the city. When Mildred awakens she does not recollect taking the pills, and finds nothing wrong with what happened. Mildred and her husband have a peculiar relationship, in which she has no desire to talk to or spend any time with Guy whatsoever. Her incident demonstrates the lack of life and amusement in Ray Bradbury's futuristic city.

Montag continues to spend time with Clarisse as she continues to open his eyes to the lackluster world they have been living in, and just as fast as she appeared in his life, she disappeared, whom, he later finds out, has been in a fatal accident. When Montag goes to work, everything goes normally until a radio announcement states war may be declared any hour on the country, yet none of the firemen panic. Instead they prepare to leave as a call just came through about an elderly lady hoarding books in her attic. Nothing about this call went routinely. Montag and his two firemen friends, Stoneman and Black, prepared to dump kerosene all over the books, but before they could do so, Montag stole and hid one of the books in his jacket. As the rest of the department was about to leave and set the fire, The elderly women chooses, instead of leaving her books and being shipped off to the insane asylum, to be burned alive with her home and library. Before they could do anything to get the elderly woman out of harm, she lit the match herself as her house went up in flames. No one did anything to stop her, all the firemen who are supposed to be protecting the citizens just left her there to burn. This is one of the moments Montag finally realizes how corrupt the world is.

Montag returns home, completely in awe of what just happened with the elderly woman and begins to question his job and the underlying effects of books all together. The next day, he skips work, and just as he was talking to Mildred about quitting his job, Captain Beatty, Montag's highly intelligent fire chief and head of his department, shows up outside of Montag's home. Captain Beatty explains every fireman experiences a period of time where he questions his job and has a love of books, just as Montag is. He also explains of how books are useless and worthless and every word means nothing. Once the captain leaves, Montag and Mildred go upstairs and begin to read the illegal books hidden in his home. And just as they start to wonder what each word and quote mean, there is a knock at the door, thus ending part one.

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury has many messages he is trying to convey in this part of the book, but I think his main message was that the world could change drastically. Between the setting in a futuristic city and the old soul and wisdom from Clarisse McClellan and her family, he's trying to show that people living in the world they are used to, have no idea that fifty years ago people lived a different way.

Quote

"Didn't firemen prevent fires rather then stoke them up and get them going?"

(Guy Montag 34)

Part Two: The Sieve and the Sand: Characters and Significant Events

When we ended in part one, Montag and Mildred were reading the hidden illegal books,