220 Bradbury, Ray
state in Fahrenheit 451 limits human expression and
restricts the human spirit. Books and the ideas they
carry are threats to a society that does not want its
citizens to exercise independent thought.
The novel’s protagonist, Guy Montag, discov-
ers that the power of storytelling lies in its ability
to bind people into community. At the end of the
novel, Montag finds himself part of an alienated
society, the function of which is to remember the
stories from books lost to fire. With the destruction
of the printed word, humans and human communi-
ties become the protectors and medium for the old
stories, stories that carry the history of humanity
and its identity.
Mark D. Dunn
educatiOn in Fahrenheit 451
The education of the fireman Guy Montag begins
with a question. Walking home after a long day at
the station, Montag meets his 17-year-old neighbor,
Clarisse McClellan, who asks, “Do you ever read any
of the books you burn?” In Ray Bradbury’s night-
mare world of censorship, historical revision, and
thought control, reading books is illegal, and fire-
men like Montag are responsible for ensuring that
the law is not broken. Books are confiscated. Books
are burned. People caught possessing books are put
on trial and jailed. But the protagonist of Fahrenheit
451 has a secret he does not share with his young
neighbor: Guy Montag has been collecting books.
Despite his profession, Montag cannot resist the
allure of books and the knowledge they carry.
From the beginning of the novel, Guy Montag is
a willing student waiting for a teacher. At their sec-
ond meeting, Clarisse teaches Montag about the joy
of rainfall. Rain and the natural world outside the
city are foreign elements to Montag. He has never
tasted rainfall and must learn of this small participa-
tion in the cycle of nature from watching Clarisse.
Dissatisfied with her teachers, Clarisse has
moved her classroom to the outdoors. She learns
from the world what she needs to know of it. Speak-
ing of the drudgery of the school system, she says,
“[W ]e never ask questions, or at least most don’t;
they just run the answers at you.... It’s a lot of fun-
nels and a lot of water poured down the spout and
out the bottom.” The model of education Clarisse
describes is one that most students are familiar with,
in which the teacher provides information that stu-
dents are expected to consume. However, Clarisse
knows that the important aspects of life are not
taught in her school. The type of learning Clarisse
longs for is not the kind imposed on students by a
system, but rather an opportunity for students to
find understanding of the mysteries of the universe
within themselves. After all, the word education has
its roots in the Latin educare: “to bring out.” Clarisse
also knows that the process of learning begins with
asking questions.
Montag begins to question his job when a
woman chooses to be burned alive rather than to
abandon her books. Disturbed by the incident,
Montag calls in sick to work and retreats into bed.
There are no answers to the questions that trouble
him, but he suspects that the books he burns might
“get us halfway out of the cave.” Like Clarisse, he
questions the effectiveness of the school system he
has known. Education, in Montag’s world, is learn-
ing the robotic functions of “pressing buttons, pull-
ing switches, fitting nuts and bolts.” Schools, says
Montag, focus too much on obtaining a job and not
enough on the pleasures of learning and the impor-
tance of curiosity.
When Clarisse McClellan and her family disap-
pear, Montag is left without a guide. His curiosity
has been aroused by his reading and by conversa-
tions with Clarisse, but he has no one to share it
with. He remembers Professor Faber, a man he met
in a park some time before. Faber, a former English
professor, tries to help Montag sift through the
jumble of new ideas and insights that confuse him.
Montag laments that “nobody listens anymore.” The
ability to listen, Montag learns, is an important sec-
ond step in the learning process, after the ability to
ask difficult questions.
Professor Faber teaches Montag that ignorance,
and a willingness to display ignorance, is one of the
most useful tools a student can possess. Without an
ability to accept and recognize within oneself a need
for learning, a student will never learn.
As Guy Montag demonstrates, education and
knowledge are dangerous things because the small-
est taste of learning can ignite a desire for more. The
education of Guy Montag begins when he questions