Fahrenheit 451 Quote Analysis

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury introduces us to a failed utopia in a distant made-up future. Books are illegal. People cannot own or read books. A firefighter, Montag, whose job is to burn books, starts to wonder why books are available if they are illegal. Bradbury introduces us to Clarisse, Beatty, and this failed utopia to better explain the problem. Bradbury effectively uses conflict between characters to demonstrate how society can be so parochial.
To begin with, Bradbury opens up with Montag meeting a girl named Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse is labeled by Beatty as a “time bomb”. Clarisse is a genuine curious sensitive girl who questions everything about society(Peter Sisario). Clarisse introduces herself to Montag as “Seventeen and insane”.

“Are you happy?”, Montag kept asking himself. He kept telling himself that he was, but was he really? As he walks into his house he keeps looking for reasons on why he should be happy. Deep down Montag knows he really is not happy. Montag is having a mental dispute. Clarisse just messed with his mind. Montag believed he was happy. He had never really thought about it until Clarisse dropped the question on him. Montag now wanted to believe he was happy. He wanted to believe that he had a happy life with his wife. He wanted to believe that he was happy with his job. He wanted to believe that he was happy in the type of world he lived in. He wanted to believe he was happy in a “world hostile to honesty”(Peter Sisario). Montag, having a mental struggle, then recognizes he is not happy with himself. He is not happy with his life. He is not happy with his wife who purposely takes a tremendous amount of drugs to possibly sleep and not wake up. He is not happy with his job. He is not happy with the world he lives in. Montag is contending with himself. He thought he was happy but turns out he was entirely wrong. Why is he not

He begins to question why a firefighter's job is to burn books. He start to suspiciously ask his boss, Beatty, about the past in which firefighters supposedly put out fighters instead of starting them. Beatty begins to feel skeptical about Montag's sudden curiosity. Montag had read a quote from a book without anyone knowing that said, “ We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.” It was the relationship with Clarisse opened up the curious side of montag; the first “drop” by which started Montag’s curiosity(Peter Sisario). Beatty then warns Montag about this new girl that unexpectedly came into Montag's life. He calls Clarisse a “time bomb”, meaning that at some point,Clarisse will only cause Montag to get in a lot of trouble. Because of it, now it is killing Montag inside to know why books are looked upon as something bad, so he decides to steal a book to take home and possibly read. He is familiar with the major consequences that are to be brought upon if he gets caught but he does not mind it. He fails at trying to not get discovered as he gets a call at his job to go burn books at his house. He watches as his wife gets into an unknown car and drives disappearing into the distance leaving Montag alone