Fahrenheit 451 shows how people’s rights to free speech and media are essential to a free thinking society. Guy Montag, the main character, is a firefighter, which in his futuristic society means he burns books for the government because they are illegal due to the potentially controversial ideas they contain. Montag meets a girl named Clarisse, who helps him realize he’s not really content in how he’s living his life and in his relationships, which begins to change his viewpoint on the society’s standards. His wife Mildred, as well as the rest of society, are highly materialistic and shallow in their daily activities and interactions. Montag eventually steals a book during the fireman’s raid on a house, which leads him to seek out a man named Faber, who is an educated man, and helps encourage Montag to take steps to action. Beatty, the firehouse captain, had been suspicious of Montag being in possession of literature. His dubious thoughts are found to be correct when Mildred turned Montag in. Montag is forced to go on the run, leaving the city for the countryside, where he finds other outcasted intellectuals. The city is bombed, leaving it completely destroyed and the society in ruins. The society Ray Bradbury creates in Fahrenheit 451 showcases how censorship is a threat to free thinking, society’s humanity, and human relationships through the use of imagery, symbolism and motifs. Bradbury uses imagery to give the reader insight on how this society thinks and functions.