The story takes place in an unspecified city in a distant future.

The protagonist, Guy Montag,

is a fireman whose job is to burn down houses in which books have been discovered. After
leaving work one day, he meets Clarisse, a teenage girl who enjoys nature and asks if he is
happy. At home, he finds that his wife, Mildred, has swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills in a
suicide attempt. After he calls for help, two men arrive and revive her. The next morning, she
behaves as though nothing happened and watches as usual the programs on the television
screens that make up three of the parlour walls. Montag and the cheerful Clarisse begin
talking regularly, until one day she is not outside waiting for him; he eventually learns that she
was killed by a speeding car. Later, when the firemen are sent to burn down the house of an
elderly woman, Montag takes her Bible—an act that he thinks his hand has undertaken on its
own—and the woman chooses to die with her books. Montag begins to have doubts about his
mission, and the next day he stays home from work.
Firehouse leader Captain Beatty goes to Montag in order to convince him that the fireman’s
job is important. He explains that people began to lose interest in reading after the advent of
television and that objections to some passages in books by interest groups and minorities
led to censorship. Eventually it was felt that books and learning in general created inequality
and unhappiness, and so books were banned. After Beatty leaves, Montag reveals to Mildred
that he has hidden several books in the house. They begin reading, but he finds the books
hard to understand, and Mildred prefers TV.
Montag remembers that he has the phone number and address of a retired English professor,
Faber. Thinking that he may have the last printed copy of the Bible, Montag heads to Faber’s
home while trying to memorize passages from the work. Montag asks Faber to teach him to
understand books, and Faber agrees. When Montag arrives home, Mildred is watching TV
with two friends, one of whom announces that her husband has been drafted to fight in the
current war. Montag attempts to engage the women in conversation about their lives and
politics. When he begins reading aloud from a poetry collection, one of Mildred’s friends
begins crying, while the other is angered, saying that this is why books are banned.
The next day at work, Montag and the other firemen go out on a call, and it turns out that it is
Montag’s house that is to be burned down. Montag is informed that Mildred was the one who
reported him, and she leaves in a taxi without talking to her husband.

Guy Montag is the protagonist of Fahrenheit 451, he is roughly thirty years old and is a
firefighter. He considers his work a "vocation", but he will change his point of view when a girl,
his neighbor, will make him reflect on the values ​of a society that does not allow freedom of
expression as well as the spread of culture. This will be a turning point for him: he starts
becoming aware of the sad reality that surrounds him, until another episode causes him to
finally give in: an elderly woman lets herself be burned with her house rather than living
without books. All this ignites in him new curiosities that slowly push him to radically change
his life. His open mind to innovations and changes is able to listen to the people who are
making a decisive turn in his life, also going through moments of insecurity and doubt. Guy is
a character who evolves over the course of the story: from the beginning, in which he is proud
of his profession, to the conclusion, when, having broken the link with his past life, he finds
true happiness in reading. This turning point comes with his determination and his courage
that will leave no room for past doubts to make a risky but fundamental choice for his future.
Clarisse McClellan is Guy's new neighbor. She is a strange girl for that society, in which she
is defined as "crazy", but very special for the protagonist. She insinuates doubts and
perplexities on which Montag has never had the opportunity to reflect. First she realizes his
actual unhappiness despite him being introverted. Precisely these doubts about people's
superficiality set the protagonist's profound change in motion. She is a simple person, but
deep in soul and a little curious: she likes nature, smells, observing people and things. It
seems strange in the eyes of those people, because, unlike the majority, she prefers to talk to
others and confide in each other rather than watching television. She has questions about the
past, a different era that contrasts with the sad reality that is being experienced in the novel,
and shows Guy how insignificant life is without books, sources of culture and profound
reflections. At a certain point in the story Clarisse dies, Montag believes that she has been
killed by that oppressive society.

Mildred is Guy's wife. Unlike her husband, Mildred is fully compliant with the society in which
she lives: she spends most of her time watching television and in particular “the family”, a
program with which the viewer can interact, creating a bond of participation and common
harmony. She is a superficial woman tied to material goods, used to achieve only temporary
pleasure: she even sleeps with radio receivers in her ears to listen to music continuously.
Mildred takes sleep medications, to the point that she sometimes overdoes it and passes out,
alarming Guy. When Montag brings the books into the house, Mildred fails to understand their
value. Afraid of the consequences that could happen if her husband were found in
possession of books, she is the one who reports him to the fire brigade.

Faber is an elderly professor forced by the new society to leave his job. Faber undergoes a
measure aimed at preventing the spread of culture, considered an evil for the population,
which they want to keep in ignorance. Faber is a lover of literature and deeply believes that
books are very useful tools for forming the culture of readers, but at the same time he claims
the possibility of interrupting and forgetting them, unlike the suffering of men which cannot be
forgotten. In the novel he becomes friend and helper of Montag: he helps him to understand
the real meaning of the books, as well as the defects and absurdities of that world,
transmitting to him new ideals of life.

Beatty is the captain of the fire brigade. He trusts Montag and his abilities to do his job. He
soon realizes the change that the protagonist is undergoing, because all the firefighters in
their career have a moment of hesitation and doubts. For this reason he tries to convince him
to return to the right path and to follow the values of the society in which they live. He shows
Montag the true happiness that is not found in books, but which must be enjoyed in practical
life, making use of the goods that surround him; He urges him not to listen to Clarisse's
words, but to keep anchored to material life, to superficiality. In his speeches he appears very
persuasive and consistent with his principles.