Fahrenheit 451 Characters: Montag, Clarisse, Mildred, Beatty and Faber
A fireman, the girl who asks him one question, and the people on both sides of the fire
The main character is Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books. He is changed by his young neighbour Clarisse McClellan, ignored by his wife Mildred, challenged by his chief Captain Beatty and helped by a retired professor, Faber.
At the end he joins Granger and a group of wanderers who each memorize a book.
Guy Montag
Montag has been a fireman for ten years and, at the start, he enjoys it: the smell of kerosene, the grin he cannot wipe off his face. He has been secretly hiding books behind the air vent of his house without reading them. A chance meeting with Clarisse makes him admit that he is not happy, and from then on he starts to question everything. He is not a wise hero; he is impatient and sometimes reckless, which makes his change believable.
↑ Back to the topClarisse McClellan
Clarisse is seventeen and, by her own description, crazy, because she likes to walk, talk, smell flowers and ask why. Her family sits together and talks, which the authorities find suspicious. She asks Montag if he is happy, and he cannot stop thinking about it. She appears in only a few pages before she disappears, reportedly killed by a speeding car, but she is the spark for everything that follows.
↑ Back to the topMildred Montag
Mildred spends her days in the parlour, where three walls are giant screens showing a never-ending show she calls her family, and sleeps with small radio shells in her ears. Early in the book Montag finds she has swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills, and two technicians casually pump her stomach; the next morning she remembers nothing. She stands for a society that has numbed itself, and in the end she betrays Montag.
↑ Back to the topCaptain Beatty
Beatty is Montag's boss and the most interesting villain in the book, because he has clearly read widely and quotes books constantly to mock them. In his long speech to Montag he explains how society came to burn books: not because a government ordered it, but because people wanted faster, simpler entertainment that never offended anyone. He seems to suspect Montag from the start, and their final confrontation is one of the turning points of the novel.
↑ Back to the topFaber
Faber is a retired English professor whom Montag once met in a park and let go, though he suspected he had a book. He is frightened and calls himself a coward, but he gives Montag a tiny earpiece so he can guide him in secret. He explains what books really give us: detail and quality of information, time to think, and the freedom to act on what we learn.
↑ Back to the topGranger and the book people
Granger leads a group of exiles, many of them former professors, living by the railway tracks outside the city. Each person has memorized a book or part of one, so that they can rebuild once the cities have destroyed themselves. They welcome Montag and teach him that he is now a book himself. Granger's image of the phoenix, the bird that rises from its own ashes, gives the book its hopeful ending.
↑ Back to the topWho's who at a glance
| Character | Who they are | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Guy Montag | A fireman, about thirty | Hero; turns against book burning |
| Clarisse McClellan | A seventeen-year-old neighbour | Asks the question that wakes him |
| Mildred Montag | Montag's wife | Lives for her wall screens |
| Captain Beatty | Fire chief | Defends the system; knows books well |
| Faber | Retired English professor | Montag's guide and teacher |
| Granger | Leader of the book people | Shows Montag a future |
| The Mechanical Hound | A robotic tracking machine | Hunts down lawbreakers |
| Mrs Phelps and Mrs Bowles | Mildred's friends | Show how empty life has become |
More about Fahrenheit 451
Books Like Fahrenheit 451
Something Wicked This Way ComesRay Bradbury
The Stepford WivesIra Levin
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Philip K. Dick
Brave New WorldAldous Huxley
1984George Orwell
A Clockwork OrangeAnthony Burgess
Forever PeaceJoe Haldeman
The Invisible ManH. G. WellsThis guide discusses the whole plot, including the ending.