Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury (1953)
“A fireman who burns books. A society that chose its own ignorance. Written by a man so broke he had to feed coins into a typewriter — in a library.”
EraContemporary / Cold War
Pages158
Difficulty★★☆☆☆ Moderate
AP Appearances8
Character Analysis
A fireman who begins the novel in the professional satisfaction of burning and ends it as a living book walking toward ruins. Montag's transformation is the most literal in the canon: he becomes what he was paid to destroy. His change is catalyzed by other people — Clarisse, Faber, Granger — which is Bradbury's point: no one becomes a reader alone. The encounter with another attentive mind is required.
How They Speak
Short declaratives, confused questions, growing vocabulary as he reads — his language literally expands over the course of the novel