A world devoid of intellectual thought and meaning, where books are seen as evil and one's own beliefs can be a death sentence. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, he tells the tale of a world that looks like this. The story follows a fireman named Guy Montag, but he isn't your average fireman. Montag starts fires instead of putting them out. His job is to go to houses suspected of having books and burn them down. Books are outlawed because they encourage free thinking and allow people to have their own opinions. All things that an all-controlling government doesn't want. One night on a walk home from work, Montag meets a teenage girl named Clarisse Mccleanan. Montag continues to speak to Clarisse, and she begins to open his eyes to …show more content…
The effects that the woman in the burning house had on Montag caused him to become curious about books and changed his worldview. Montag began to see the humanity in his actions. At first, he was trying to rationalize her death, but soon the guilt would take over him and it would cause him to have a change of heart. A change that would make him rethink how he sees his career and his life as a whole. “You weren't hurting anyone, you were only hurting things! And since things really couldn't be hurt, since things felt nothing, and things didn't scream or whimper, as this woman might begin to scream and cry out, there was nothing to tease your conscience later (Bradbury 34).” This quote demonstrates Montag's attempt at rationalizing his actions. He doesn't understand how objects, like books, can have any real value in the world and he decides to not understand but to instead turn a blind eye, but not for long. Montag is restless thinking about the woman in the burning house. His conscience is hung up on the events at the burning woman's home. He didn't understand why somebody would light a match and drop it to lead to their demise, but this made him