plot
Plot
Guy Montag lives within a society in which books are banned. His contribution to his community is to burn books as a fireman. While walking home from work one day, Montag has a conversation with a 17 year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan. Over the next few days, Clarisse opens up Montag's eyes to the injustice of the society in which he lives. One day, when Montag's squad has to burn a house that belongs to an old lady keeping books.Contrary to the firemen's pleas not to, the old lady burns herself with the books. A few days later, Clarisse is run over by a car. Montag becomes very depressed and believes reading books he has stashed in his air vent will help.
Weakened by the events of the past few days, Montag doesn't show up for work the next morning. The captain of the fire department, Captain Beatty, visits his house later that day. Beatty explains that it is normal for firemen to question their job. When Montag asks what the consequences are for a fireman possessing books, he says that the fireman normally has 24 hours to hand in the book. Montag looks to his wife, Mildred, for emotional support but instead, Mildred prefers to watch television and is disinterested in the books. Montag decides to visit an old English professor he met in the park a year ago named Faber.
Montag and Faber start forming plan to change society. They decide to plant books in the homes of firemen to discredit the profession. Faber gives Montag a two-way radio earpiece so that they can communicate with each other. After Montag returns home, Mildred's friends, Mrs. Phelps & Mrs. Bowles, come over to watch TV. After conversing with them form awhile, is becomes angered by the shallowness of the women. He pulls out a book of poems and reads "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold). The women can't handle the emotion of the poem and file a complaint against Montag.
Later that night, Montag arrives at the fire station for his shift and hands Beatty a book. Suddenly, the alarm sounds and the firemen rush off to a house. Montag is taken aback when the fire truck arrives at his own house. After Mildred rushes out of the house and into a taxicab, he learns that it was Mildred who exposed him. Beatty tells Montag to burn the house and that after he does so, he will be placed under arrest. While burning the house, Beatty taunts Montag so he burns Beatty alive. After knocking the other firemen unconscious, Montag turns to run away but a robot dog that Beatty has set up called the Mechanical Hound injects Montag with anesthetic. Montag burns the Mechanical Hound, but not before it injects anesthetic into Montag's leg, causing it to go temporarily numb.
Montag goes to Faber and asks for his help. Faber says he is leaving for St. Louis and gives Montag some money and some of his old clothes to mask his scent from a new mechanical hound that the police have deployed to find Montag. He escapes the replacement Mechanical Hound by jumping into a river so that it would lose his scent. Montag finds a group of wandering intellectuals led by a man named Granger. After Montag wanders with the group for a while, the city gets nuked by an attacking country. The book ends with Montag and the intellectuals walking toward the city to look for survivors and help rebuild society.