Farenheit 451 Characters

Journal on Characters
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

In Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is the protagonist in this book. He is a fireman which is similar to a policeman. In Montag’s world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature or spend time by themselves. Instead, they drive very fast, watch a lot of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radios” attached to their ears.
Montag meets a girl named Clarisse McClellan, who makes him think about the emptiness of his life with her questions. Then, Montag experiences some disturbing events. First, his wife, Mildred, almost kills herself by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. Then, when he responds to an alarm that an old woman has a stash of hidden literature, the woman shocks him by choosing to be burned alive along with her books. A few days later, he hears that Clarisse has been killed by a speeding car. Montag’s unhappiness with his life increases, and he begins to search for the meaning of life in a bunch of books that he has stolen from his own fires and hidden inside an air-conditioning vent.

Montag is a man who has trouble with right and wrong.   He hides the books, but this behaviour is illegal, and he is torn about what to do. As a fireman, his job is to burn books, yet he secretly hoards them.   He is responsible to uphold the law, but at the same time he questions it. In his world, he’s a traitor.   Guy is generally unhappy with his life. He is not sure about whether he loves his wife, and this is another source of conflict for this character. To me, Guy Montag seems believable, because he becomes so unhappy and confused that he begins to question the rules of society and his place in it.