Brief Summary In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

The Terrible Tyranny of the Majority

Political activist Jim Hightower once spoke of societies’ submission to government and the following of conventional thought or action saying, “The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow”. As in Fahrenheit 451, when individuals only follow, intellectual thought becomes ostracized and leads to a world in which everybody is a carbon copy of one another. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Guy Montag, a fireman who destroys books instead of saving, realizes that his obedience to societies’ values has led to his lack of self fulfillment after meeting innocent youth Clarisse McClellan, seeing an old lady give her life for books, and his boss, Captain Beatty, visiting his home and warning him of the so-called dangers of

When Montag saw the old woman give up her life instead of not being able to read, it shocked him, “There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning home; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing” (Bradbury 54-55). Montag then realized that books have the ability to substantially affect one’s life in such a positive way that justifies committing suicide over them. He then continued explaining his internal rebellion against society after the event with, “Last night I thought about all the kerosene I’ve used in the past ten years. And I thought about books…a man was behind one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to… put them down on paper. And I’d never even thought about that thought before” (Bradbury 55). Montag had begun to think that books themselves were nothing, but it was the people, the thoughts, and the ideas behind them that not only made them great, but also had made them