AP Book Report Farenheit 451
1. Title of Work: Farenheit 451
2. Author and date written: Ray Bradbury, 1950
3. Country of Author: America
4. Characters:
Montag (major) – Montag is a determined but confused fireman that doesn’t know his purpose in life. After several conversations with Clarisse, he starts to realize the emptiness in his life. Not only does he try to find the meaning of his life, but also of the books he’s burning.
Mildred (major) – Mildred has low self-steem and is stupid. She attempts to cmmit suicide and also betrays Guy near the end of the story. She likes to watch the parlor walls and is always listening to the SeaShell. Even though Mildred and Guy have been married for 10 years, they have a distant relationship. She is the wife of Guy Montag.
Clarisse (major) – Clarisse is a seventeen year-old girl that lives next to Guy Montag. Her conversations with Guy Montag are always unusual and peculiar. She doesn’t go to school because she isn’t considered “social”.
Beatty- (Minor) – Beatty is a well-read and contradicting captain of the fire department. Eventhough he dislikes books, he is able to quote them.
Faber- (major) – Faber was a professor before the censorship of books. Faber is an intellectual that helps explain to Guy to the meaning of books.
Granger (minor) – Granger is the leader of the hobo intellectuals. He tries to help people through books.
Stoneman and Black (minor) - The usual dull firemen that work at the same firestation as Guy.
Ms. Phelps (minor) – Ms. Phelps is one of Mildred’s friends. She says that she’ll move on without her husband because he’s at war. But when Guy reads a poem, she starts to immediately starts to cry. This shows her emotional unstability.
5. Major Settings
Montag’s House- Montag’s house is described in the book like a coffin. This depicts the emptiness of his home. Once Montag walks into his house, the mood suddenly changes to a sad and depressing one. His house depicting a coffin is perfect because everything the house contains is emotionally “dead”. ‘For example, Montag’s wife acts like a “dead” human being.
6. Plot Outline
Guy Montag is a fireman that burns books in his society. In his society , to have possession of a book is considered a crime. The firemen job is to burn the house of the individual holding the books. But one day Guy meets a seventeen year old girl named Clarisse, and questions him about the most peculiar things.
Mildred is a stereotypical character who only knows what the government and other people tell her. "And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios
The questioning from Clarisse has led Montag to a loss of self-esteem. Clarisse, Montag’s new neighbor, starts a conversation with him. Clarisse has a different personality than the other people Montag knows at the fire station. She is very outgoing, likes nature, and is not into socializing. When Clarisse asks about Montag’s job, she says that Montag is a fireman without the typical fireman qualities.
One night on Montag’s usual walk home from work, he meets a young unusual girl named Clarisse McClellan. She is different from most people, she is idealistic and hates what being social has turned into. She tells Montag of a society where firemen once use to put out accidental fires, and not start them as they do now. Montag thinks this is nonsense the Chief has reassured him that firemen have always started fires, it’s even in rule book. Clarisse continues to tell him about her uncle, who remembers such things from the past. She tells Montag about her family and how they stay up all night talking about a variety of different things. Montag thinks this is very odd, why would anyone want to waste their time just staying up and talking?
She does not express her views of the world since she spends her days watching and “communicating” with the parlor walls. Because of this, she is very forgetful of personal events and careless of others. Bradbury 40, Montag thinks back to when he and Mildred first met. “The first time we met, where was it and when?” “Why it was at-” She stopped. “I don't know,” she said. Also in Bradbury 49, Mildred states, “..let me alone. I didn't do anything,” as Montag shares his book conflict. This shows how Mildred lacks in thinking and considering the feelings of others. Therefore, she is the opposing side of the theme of the
The next character that intrigued me was Brian, the quote-on-quote "nerd." A nerd is a person that is academically inclined and is known for striving to get good grades and being socially inept. His confession of why he was in Saturday detention seemed a lot more serious then it actually turned out to be. He was in Saturday detention because he had a gun in his locker. He bought the gun to kill because he had intent on killing himself.
Within the many layers of Montag lay several opposite sides. For example, Montag is a fireman who burns books for a living but at home, spends time reading novels, poetry, and other written material. Although Montag could be called a hypocrite, he does not enjoy both the reading and the burning at the same time; he goes through a change that causes him to love books. Humans have the power to change and grow from one extreme to another, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In addition, when Mildred is with Montag, Montag does not have feelings for her but thinks of her as she is killed by the bombs. He possesses both the knowledge that Mildred does not love him and the heart that truly cares, but he knows not how to deal with this. His feelings are oppressed; it takes a major event (the bomb) to jolt them from hibernation.
The beginning of the novel begins with the main character Guy Montag burning down a house. Montag uses a kerosene pack to burn down the home with the specific objective of burning all the books that are inside to ash. After Montag successfully destroys all the books and the home, he returns to the fire station. Montag, while at the station, shines his helmet, hangs his jacket and takes a shower. After a short period of time, Montag leaves the fire station to go to the subway and go home. After Montag gets off the subway and walks down the street, he walks into a girl name Clarisse McCiellan, who he later finds out during their walk to be his new neighbor. During McCiellan and Montag’s talk, they discuss his firefighter career, how long he has been a firefighter, how she is not afraid of him and if firemen put fires out instead of starting them in the past. After walking for a few streets, they reach their homes. Before McCiellan leaves, she asks Montag if he is happy. However, he is unable to respond because she leaves. Montag then enters his house and goes to his bedroom. Montag, before being able to make it to his bed, trips on an object on the floor. He uses his lighter to light his room. Then, Montag sees his wife barely alive because she has taken a bottle of sleeping pills. Montag grabs the phone and calls for medical assistance for his wife. Two men respond to the house and use two machines to pump her stomach and clean her blood. After the two men leave, Montag goes outside to the porch of McCiellan’s house. After a while, he returns to his house and goes to sleep. The next morning, Montag wakes up with his wife Mildred cooking breakfast in the kitchen. The two o...
Guy Montag is a fireman who is greatly influenced in Ray Bradbury's novel, Fahrenheit 451. The job of a fireman in this futuristic society is to burn down houses with books in them. Montag has always enjoyed his job, that is until Clarisse McClellan comes along. Clarisse is seventeen and crazy. At least, this is what her uncle, whom she gets many of her ideas about the world from, describes her as. Clarisse and Montag befriend each other quickly, and Clarisse's impact on Montag is enormous. Clarisse comes into Montag's life, and immediately begins to question his relationship with his wife, his career, and his happiness. Also, Clarisse shows Montag how to appreciate the simple things in life. She teaches him to care about other people and their feelings. By the end of the novel, we can see that Montag is forever changed by Clarisse.
Clarisse is the happy one in the book. She is a young girl who meets Montag one day when he is taking a walk. She can tell that Montag doesn’t look happy. “He wears his happiness like a mask.”(pg.5) This is saying that his happiness was just to cover up his true discontentment inside of him. Because he is wearing his happiness just to cover up his discontent, Clarisse tries to show him that he is truly not happy. He tries to say that he is happy, but he knows that he really isn’t happy after all and he thought he was. The Healthy Living Website says ...
Clarisse is a young, but intelligent girl that, unlike many children in the novel, was raised with discipline. “I was spanked when i needed it, years ago.” Clarisse said to Montag referring to how she was raised. Kids used to be loving and caring, but now it’s not like that anymore. The world is a dystopia and everyone has lost hope, but Clarisse, her family, a group of hobos who want to join the fight for books, and a secret team of Harvard graduates. Clarisse met a man named Montag, who is a firefighter that burns books down along with the house they were in if the owner of the books refuses to reveal their location. Clarisse walked with Montag, right after they had met, and told him of the many things life has to offer that he doesn’t see because he is caught up in burning books for a living. She caught Montag’s emotions and this is what ultimately ended up with Montag deciding he was going to stop burning books and even help the Harvard graduates memorize and spread the words and knowledge of the books that remain. Clarisse filled Montag with empathy and this changed Montag’s view of life
First, Mildred could be described as unfeeling. She does not care and is emotionless to everything that happens no matter what it is. In the novel, a woman kills herself in front of Montag, and because of this he is upset. Mildred’s response to this included, “She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have books, it was her responsibility, she should have thought of that.” She does not care that her husband is upset, and she doesn’t feel sorry or sad that someone died. Based on Captain
Guy Montag is an ordinary fireman, whose job is to just simply burn books, and a follow the law,
In the beginning of the book, Guy Montag never once thought of what his job really entailed or why he was burning houses and books down. Until one night, he met a girl named Clarice; the girl who changed everything. She might not have been in the book long but her character was essential. Clarice was the start of Montag slowly realizing what it exactly is that his job is making him do. “ ‘Do you mind if I ask? How long’ve you worked at being a fireman?’ ‘Since I was twenty, ten years ago.’ ‘Do you ever read any of the books you burn?’ He laughed. ‘That’s
When Montag meets Clarisse, his neighbor, he starts to notice that there is more to life than burning books. Montag states, “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I have used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of those books” (Bradbury 49). It begins to bother Montag that all he has done for the past years is burn books. He starts to rethink his whole life, and how he has been living it. Montag goes on to say, “It took some men a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! It is all over” (Bradbury 49) Before, Montag never cares about what he has been doing to the books, but when he begins to ignore the distractions and really think about life he starts to notice that he has been destroying some other mans work. Montag begins to think more of the world
Mildred is not just self-centered, she is also unfeeling. For example she forgot to tell Montag that clarisse had died, and didn’t seem fazed at all. She is also robotic. When captain Beatty came to talk to Montag, Montag had asked her to leave the room. She did angrily, but she still did as she was told.