Fahrenheit 451: Summary of the Hearth and the Salamander

FAHRENHEIT 451

Summary of the Hearth and the Salamander

In the first part of Fahrenheit 451, the character Guy Montag, a thirty-year-old fireman in the twenty-fourth century (remember that the novel was written in the early 1950s) is introduced. In this dystopian (dreadful and oppressive) setting, people race 'jet cars' down the roads as a way of terminating stress, 'parlor walls' are large screens in every home used dually for entertainment and governmental propaganda, and houses have been fireproofed, thus making the job of firemen, as they are commonly known, obsolete. However, firemen have been given a new occupation; they are burners of books and the official censors of the state. As a fireman, Guy Montag is responsible for destroying not only the books he finds, but also the homes in which he finds them. Books are not to be read; they are to be destroyed without question.

For Montag, 'It was a pleasure to burn.' The state mandated that all books must burn. Therefore, Montag, along with the other firemen, burn the books to show conformity. Without ideas, everyone conforms, and as a result, everyone should be happy. When books and new ideas are available to people, conflict and unhappiness occur. At first, Montag believes that he is happy. When he views himself in the firehouse mirror after a night of burning, he grins 'the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.'

However, the reader quickly notices that everything isn't as Montag wants it to be. When Montag meets Clarisse McClellan, his new vivacious teenage neighbor, he begins to question whether he really is happy. Clarisse gives Montag enlightenment; she questions him not only about his own personal happiness but also about his occupation and about the fact that he knows little truth about history. At the same time, she also gives the reader the opportunity to see that the government has dramatically changed what its citizens perceive as their history. For example, Montag never knew that firemen used to fight actual fires or that billboards used to be only 20 feet long. Nor did Montag know that people could actually talk to one another; the governmental use of parlor walls has eliminated the need for casual conversation. Clarisse arouses Montag's curiosity and begins to help him discover that real happiness has been missing from his life for quite some time.

After Montag's encounter with Clarisse, he returns home to find his wife Mildred Montag (Millie) unconscious; she is lying on the bed with her Seashell Radios in her ears and has overdosed on tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Two impersonal technicians, who bring machines to pump her stomach and provide a total transfusion, save Millie, but she could possibly overdose again and never even know it — or so it may seem. The matter of the overdose — whether an attempted suicide or a result of sheer mindlessness — is never settled. Although Montag wishes to discuss the matter of the overdose, Millie does not, and their inability to agree on even this matter suggests the profound estrangement that exists between them.

Even though Montag and Millie have been married for years, Montag realizes, after the overdose incident, that he doesn't really know much about his wife at all. He can't remember when or where he first met her. In fact, all that he does know about his wife is that she is interested only in her 'family' — the illusory images on her three-wall TV — and the fact that she drives their car with high-speed abandon. He realizes that their life together is meaningless and purposeless. They don't love each other; in fact, they probably don't love anything, except perhaps burning (Montag) and living secondhand through an imaginary family (Millie).

When Montag returns to work the next day, he touches the Mechanical Hound and hears a growl. The Mechanical Hound is best described as a device of terror, a machine that is perversely similar to a trained killer dog but has been improved by refined technology, which allows it to inexorably track down and capture criminals by stunning them with a tranquilizer. Montag fears that the dog can sense his growing unhappiness. He also fears that the Hound somehow knows that he's confiscated some books during one of his raids.