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Introduction to Montag
Guy Montag is a fireman who believes that firefighters start more fires than put them out. He has a wife named Mildred. The reason the number 451 is important is that it is the number on his firefighter helmet. -
Guy meets Clarisse
Guy Montag meets a 17-year-old girl named Clarisse McClellan. She helps him learn more about life by asking him a lot of questions about love. Clarisse talks a lot and asks a lot of questions that make her seem more curious about the world around her. -
Mildred Tries to Overdose
Montag's wife tries to overdose and commit suicide by taking a lot of sleeping pills. The only reason that she survives is that Montag was able to call the police in time. The next morning, she denies even taking the pills, most likely to make it seem like she was mentally OJ. -
Clarisse Dies
Later in the story, the 17-year-old Clarisse gets ran over by a car that was speeding. Montag begins to break down mentally. He starts to lose his mind and becomes very depressed. -
Montag Tries to Recover
After Clarisse's death, Montag starts to search through his collection of books for answers to his pain. He stops showing up for work, and eventually, his chief, Beaty, comes to visit to see what is wrong. Beaty explains that going through books is just a phase that all firemen go through. Beaty then tells him to go through the books in 24 hours to see if he can find the answer he is looking for, then turn the books in for incineration. -
Montag Meets Faber
Montag struggles to find the answers he needs in the books and remembers that he once met a retired English professor named Faber and decides to meet with him. He visits Faber, who tells him that the value of books lies in the awareness of life that they contain. Faber says that Montag needs not just books but also the freedom to read them and the freedom to act upon their ideas. -
The Hound
Before Montag had turned Beaty into a pile of ashes, Beaty had sent out a mechanical hound to go hunt down Montag. It jumps on Montag and injects a large dose of anesthetics into his leg. He kills the hound with his flamethrower, and escapes with some books he had left in his backyard. He hid inside of another fireman's house, and called in a fake fire from a pay phone. -
Montag's House Catches on Fire
After turning in the books that Beaty had forced Montag to incinerate, the alarm goes off at the fire station. When they rush to respond, they realize that the fire was at his own house. Montag sees that his wife, Mildred, got into a cab with her suitcase, and he realizes that she left him. Beaty forces Montag to incinerate his own house, then places him under arrest. After a couple minutes, Montag turns the flamethrower on Beaty and incinerates him, knocks the others out, and runs. -
On The Run
Montag meets up with Faber after beign chased. Faber tells Montag that he is leaving for St. Louis to see a retired printer who may be able to help them. Montag gives Faber some money and tells him how to remove Montag’s scent from his house so the Hound will not enter it. Montag then takes some of Faber’s old clothes and runs off toward the river. The whole city watches as the chase unfolds on TV, but Montag manages to escape in the river and change into Faber’s clothes to disguise his scent. -
Guy and Granger
Montag, after jumping into the river, floats downstream and meets a group of people calling themselves "the Book People" led by a man named Granger.They hope that they may be of some help to mankind in the aftermath of the war that has just been declared. Montag’s role is to memorize the Book of Ecclesiastes. Enemy jets appear in the sky and completely obliterate the city with bombs. Montag and his new friends move on to search for survivors and rebuild civilization
