People are influenced to believe what is right or wrong by what society says. In “Fahrenheit 451” the author, Ray Bradbury, demonstrates that the main character, Montag, breaks free of the chains of censorship and societies beliefs. In the beginning of the novel, set in the future 50’s, Montag was a firefighter who set fires rather than put them out. He loved to burn the books that the government informed his captain were banned. The smell of kerosene and burnt paper made adrenaline run through his veins. One night walking home from the fire station, Montag sees a little girl watching him. After starting a conversation, he finds out she is his new neighbor and her name is Clarisse McClellan. They begin walking and talking together. Montag felt unbelievably comfortable talking to her. Before leaving Clarisse asked “Are you happy?” (Bradbury 7) This question started repeating itself in his head. After returning home, he became aware of his unhappiness. He goes into his room to find his wife unconscious in bed, a bottle, now empty of sleeping pills on the floor. He calls the hospital in a panic, hoping she isn’t to far gone. The next day mildred remembers nothing about attempting suicide and denies everything Montag tries to tell her. When walking to work the next day, he talked with Clarisse and began to understand that technology was taking over communication among people like it had with Mildred. Because of this realization many other things started to make sense. Many days go by and Clarisse starts not showing up when Montag goes to or come home from work. Another thing that influenced Montag to believe different then society was what happened after the fire alarm sounded at the station. Upon arrival of the scene, they burst into the house only to find an old woman not even trying to escape. She said “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.” (Bradbury 33) When the woman decides to stay in the burning house with her books, Montag has feelings unlike any he has felt before. He feels empathy and compassion which is uncommon among his society. He also feels very uncomfortable since he normally only has to deal with the lifeless books and not human emotions. Unlike the other firefighters, he tries to convince her to leave the home, to save her life but to no avail. He stole a book before they had set fire to the house, he gave it no thought at the moment to commit this crime. Montag then goes home and hides the book under his pillow. He finally gets into bed after a long day and asks his wife, Mildred, when they first met. Neither of them can recall this and Montag finds that very depressing. After laying in silence he then tells her how he hasn’t seen Clarisse in a few days and Mildred tells him that she thinks that Clarisse was hit by a car and also that her family moved away after her death. Montag is sick the next morning, feeling as though he has to vomit. He later asks Mildred if she would mind if he was a firefighter anymore. During an argument CaptainCaptain Beatty arrives at their house and goes into the bedroom to speak with Montag. As Beatty is speaking with him, Mildred starts fussing over Montag and touches the book under the pillow. Her eyes get all big and leaves the room, slamming the door. Beatty keeps talking and tells Montag that every once in a while firefighters get an itch to read a sentence or take a book. He also explains how the captain lets firefighters that take a book keep it for twenty-four hours and if he doesn't burn it by then, they burn it. Montag turns to Mildred for emotional support after Beatty leaves but she has nothing to offer him. He blames the tv walls for her distance from him. He yearns for some truth
