Ray Bradbury’s dystopian story, “Fahrenheit 451”, takes place in a time where society burns books. Guy Montag, a fireman, follows the rules. When he meets Clarisse, his intelligent neighbor, she opens his eyes to a whole new world. He becomes more and more curious until one day his curiosity gets the best of him and he steals a book. One lesson the story suggests is curiosity leads to the truth, and never be afraid to pursue the truth.

In the beginning of the story, we see Guy Montag and his life. He follows the rules and burns books. Bradbury writes, “he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black.” This shows that Guy is a fireman and he’s just doing his job. It’s not until he meets Clarisse when his eyes open up to new things. “How odd. How strange. And my wife thirty and yet you seem so much older at times. I can’t get over it.” This detail shows that Clarisse is getting Guy to think about things and wonder.

More towards the middle of the story, we see him reveal his little “library” to Mildred. He is taking a risk and owning books when it is illegal. Stated from the text it says, “He kept moving his hand and dropping books, small ones, fairly large ones, yellow, red, green ones.” He also seeks out Faber, an old professor, so he can learn about the books. “You’re the only one I knew might help me. To see. To see…” They create a plan to plant books in a bunch of firemen’s homes and call 911 with an alert for books so they look like criminals. This plan could go all sorts of wrong but Montag still wants to go through with it, while Faber was just joking. Slowly, we see Guy become braver and more curious.

It could be said that Guy was just acting rebellious. While this is true, he was acting more rebellious at the middle of the story and more towards the end, not throughout the whole story. Being curious is a better point, because we see him grow more curious throughout the story. Him being a rebel is just a side-effect of being curious.

At the end of the story, we see Guy has just gone off the charts and is a known fugitive. His first action was killing Beatty. “And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling gibbering manikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on him.” Guy was pushed all the way and he had enough of it so he pulled the trigger. The second action is running away from the crime scene. “Montag sat up. Let’s get out of here. Come on, get up, get up, you just can’t sit!” He realized what he did and now he’s really in trouble. His third and final action was finding the group of “refugees” and traveling with them. “Montag began walking and after a moment found that the others had fallen in behind him, going north.” He finally found his place amongst others where he could be himself.

In conclusion, throughout the story we see how Guy becomes more curious and in some ways rebellious. One lesson the story suggests is curiosity leads to the truth, and never be afraid to pursue it. Guy wanted to learn more and he wasn’t afraid of the consequences if he did learn more by reading books. He risked his and Faber’s freedom so he could learn.