Guy Montag is a fireman in a distant-future society that does exactly as he is supposed to and cherishes his work, which entails burning books, all of which are illegal. On his walk home from work one night, he meets his neighbor, Clarisse McClellan, who is an enigmatic seventeen-year-old that questions Guy’s happiness. After returning home he starts to question how happy he truly is, that is, until he was interrupted by finding his wife, Mildred, in bed unconscious from overdosing on sleeping pills. He calls an ambulance while bombs are going off near by and keeps his cool, showing that this all is not surprising or upsetting to Guy in the slightest. Once Mildred’s stomach had been pumped by the “Snake,” Montag observed how happy the McClellan’s seemed in …show more content…
The conversation comes to an abrupt end when Guy’s boss, Beatty, drops in to check on him. Beatty seems to dubiously know exactly what Montag has done, and continues to tell him about the history of firemen, one that is true compared to the falsified one the rest of the public is told. While he is going on about this, Mildred starts cleaning up the room and discovers Guy’s book while trying to fluff his pillow. She almost says something but Montag quickly makes her leave. Beatty continues to tell Montag that, hypothetically, if a fireman were to take a book home, that fireman would have about forty-eight hours to burn the books or the other firemen would come and do it themselves. Beatty leaves and Montag decides he will never go back to work again. He then shows Mildred a hidden stockpile of about twenty books he’s been collecting. She tries to burn them but he convinces her to trust him for forty-eight hours while he tries to read them. The two of them try to read the books, but Mildred resolves that she much prefers her tv to the boring books, and Montag decides he needs a professor to help him understand the