In this part of the book we get a better look at what Guy Montag does at his job as a fireman, including a look at the rules or guidelines of the job. We see Guy and the other firemen go out on a call and burn someone’s house down, but this call is a little different - the police haven’t evacuated the house. The firemen are greeted by an old woman who is not going to leave her books. In the process of spraying down the house with kerosene, Guy gets some books toppled on him. He can’t help but look at one and his hands, seemingly acting on their own, take another to stow away. Guy seems to become aware of the violence involved in the fires for the first time on page 33, it states, “‘I-I've been thinking. About the fire last week. About the man whose library we …show more content…
What happened to him?’ ‘They took him screaming off to the asylum.’ ‘He. wasn't insane.’ Beatty arranged his cards quietly. ‘Any man's insane who thinks he can fool the Government and us.’ ‘I've tried to imagine,’ said Montag, ‘just how it would feel. I mean to have firemen burn our houses and our books.’ Clarisse has made him begin to think, and her disappearance has made him only think more. Although she is young, Clarisse opened the eyes of a man whose lot in life is to destroy others’. He is forced to think even more about his occupation on page 36 when he and his co-workers arrive at the next house they are to burn, “How inconvenient! Always before it had been like snuffing a candle. The police went first and adhesive-taped the victim's mouth and bandaged him off into their glittering beetle cars, so when you arrived you found an empty house. You weren't hurting anyone, you were hurting only things! And since things really couldn't be hurt, since things felt nothing, and things don't scream or whimper, as this woman might begin to scream and cry out, there was nothing to tease your conscience later. You were