Neil Gaiman was inspired by Ray Bradbury’s ideas and wrote, “Ideas—written ideas—are special. They are the way we transmit our stories and our thoughts from one generation to the next. If we lose them, we lose our shared history. We lose much of what makes us human”. Set in the twenty-fourth century, author Ray Bradbury introduced a society where the media controlled the public and censorship had taken over. In Ray Bradbury’s speculative fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist, Guy Montag, undergoes significant changes in order to overcome the Road of Trials as he struggles with his dystopian society, which reflects the theme of censorship.
To begin, Guy Montag, an uneducated, thirty-year-old fireman, portrays a strong passion for burning books. While walking home from the fire station one night, Montag was introduced to an internal conflict of happiness when he encountered his neighbor, Clarisse. She asked Montag a life impacting question which altered his view of society “‘Are you happy?’” (Bradbury 7),
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Although Montag had a newfound perspective on society, he still possessed an internal conflict, of whether his decisions were rectifying. By breaking free from the government’s grasp, Montag can travel with Granger, and other homeless intellectuals who helped him learn from his mistakes and move on: “‘I don’t belong with you,’ said Montag, at last, slowly. ‘I’ve been an idiot all the way’ ‘We’re used to that. We all made the right kind of mistake, or we wouldn’t be here’” (Bradbury 143). With his new founded enlightenment, Montag has broken free from censorship and began a new adventure to help restore the fallen city by building its foundation on knowledge instead of censorship. The reader can presume that Montag’s new ideas and beliefs fueled the escapade of rebellion within his