Mening Of Happiness In Fahrenheit 451

In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Montag’s unhappiness tests his relationship with his wife and pushes him to do things that should have been done before. After Montag meets a strange girl, he starts questioning what happiness really is. He starts realizing that books may have the happiness he needs in his life.

The book opens by telling us what Guy Montag does; he is a fireman, and his job is to burn books. He tells us what a pleasure it is to him when he gets to burn; it describes his uniform and details about what he likes about burning. He says, “It was a pleasure to burn. It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened, and changed” (Bradbury 1). When he is walking home from the station, he meets his new neighbor, an unusual and strange seventeen-year-old, Clarisse McClellan. She notices his uniform and realizes that he is a fireman she seems very intrigued with his uniform. She suggested to him that a fireman’s original job was to put out fires and not to start them. She asks him if he is happy and then just disappears into her house.

Montag was very curious, but I think he was also hopeful. Ray Bradbury says, “There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing” (48). Montag is hopeful that there is something in books that will give him the happiness he is looking for. As the book goes on Montag starts wondering more and more about what is in books and what they have to offer. Montag is so obsessed with wanting to know what is in books that he ends up reading some. When he was working, they got called and told that Montag was reading books and has books in his house, they went to Montag’s house to burn it, but before they can take Montag he kills his captain and runs.

There are many words that can be used to describe Montag but there are two that I think really fit him. One being Courageous, Ray Bradbury says, “See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security” (150). Montag shows he is courageous throughout the book from when he started collecting books when he knew he wasn’t supposed to, to when he killed his captain and ran away. Montag knew that he was not supposed to read books and especially keep them in his house, he knew what risk he was running but he did it anyway because he was courageous enough to fight for what he believed in. Another word is Determined, “It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away” (Bradbury 150). Montag was determined to change everyone’s thinking that books were a bad thing, he wanted people to see the good in books and let them know that they could actually help people. He was determined to bring books back into society.

Bradbury gives site into what he thinks the future would be like without books. Where people question whether they are happy or not and how the technology has improved. When Montag meets Clarisse she questions him about if he is really happy. He goes back and forth of rather he should keep burning books or if he should try to bring them back. I think Bradbury ends the book as he does so the readers can decide on their own how they want the book to end. I think they will rebuild their city and bring books back into their city. 

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