Farenheit 451 Summary

So, to begin with, the book starts out with a summary of what these new age firemen do. In this century, the firemen actually create fires, which ultimately makes no sense. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman. At first he is happy with his job, which consists of hunting down people who have books hidden in their houses, and burning them down. His wife, Mildred, is one of those oblivious, conforms-to-the-times type, so she is semi conflicting when Montag begins to see that maybe killing people and burning books is a little bit messed up. Captain Beatty is Montag’s boss at the fire station. He’s one of those creepy boss types who gives puzzling information. One day, Montag steals a book after killing some old lady, and Beatty is all weird and creepy about it, saying that Montag can keep the book for 24 hours before being “destroyed.” Of course a series of high speed chases ensues, and maybe the concept of burning books is slightly wrong.