Conflict In Fahrenheit 451

Every single person on this Earth is currently facing a problem, whether it is life changing or minute. The novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury touches upon each type of conflict a character can face: man versus self, man versus man, and man versus society. The story follows around a fireman named Montag who realized that the he and the world around him is incredibly ignorant and censored. Three parts make up the book entitled The Hearth and the Salamander, The Sieve and the Sand, and Burning Bright. Bradbury chose to organize the book into sections because each section introduces a new form of conflict, which relates to the titles because The Hearth and the Salamander relates to two different types of people and how they view fire, The Sieve

In the first section, The Hearth and the Salamander, Montag begins as a numb feeling man like the vast majority of the society's members, until he meets lively Clarisse and begins to question his though process. Captain Beatty describes Clarisse as "a time bomb" (Bradbury 64) and said that "she didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarrassing" (Bradbury 64). Since Beatty is a figure of authority and desired robotic equality, he viewed people like her as a threat and in his eyes was correct. Bradbury used Clarisse as a catalyst to spark the internal conflict in Montag, and used the title The Hearth and the Salamander to show the difference between people like Clarisse and people like Mildred and their reactions to foreign information. A hearth uses fire to warm a home and spread the warmth around, as a salamander is said to be completely unaffected by fire. When Clarisse learns information, usually from her parents or

Firstly, in the plan making process Montag and Faber are not on the same page, although Faber admitted "we're twins, we're not alone anymore"(Bradbury 106), which brings a positive side to the serious and panicked emotions Montag is feeling. The rowdy fireman then ignores all of Faber's advice and reveals his secret and illegal book stash to Mildred's friends while in a heated argument with them. Bradbury uses the metaphor "the room was blazing hot, he was all fire, he was all coldness"(Bradbury 102) referencing the past section and his continuous internal conflict and its transition to the argument. Montag loses the argument and it results in his house being called to be burned for books. The Sieve and the Sand represent the big plans that Montag had and how his newly discovered emotions put holes in the plan, like the grates in a sieve. The sand symbolizes the risk Montag was taking by arguing, that ended up collapsing and resulting in disaster due to his lack of proper thinking. He did not accept his problems and it was more detrimental than if he were to accept his flaws and fix them before he does anything