The United States in the twenty-fourth century has become a totally urbanized, anti-intellectual society. People live mainly for two forms of pleasure: breakneck driving and endless television watching on wall-size interactive screens. The greatest threat is solitary thought; the most dangerous weapon, a book. Guy Montag, a thirty-year-old fireman, helps burn any books that are discovered.
             Guy is content until he meets Clarisse McClellan, a "crazy" seventeen-year-old who reveals the madness of a society in which people talk only about trifles and never move slowly enough to notice the world around them. Going home, Guy discovers that his wife Mildred, whose sole ambition is to acquire a fourth wall-TV, has taken an overdose of sleeping pills. She is rescued, but when she awakes, she cannot even recall what happened.
             Influenced by further talks with Clarisse, Guy sees the emptiness of his life. As his doubts grow, Beatty, his fire captain, becomes suspicious. Although Clarisse is killed by a reckless driver, Guy continues to ponder her words. One night his crew sets fire to the house of a woman who chooses to die amid her books. Guy hides her Bible and takes it home. The next day he feels too ill to work. Beatty visits and explains that books have been banned because they produce tension and confusion in society.
             When Beatty leaves, Guy tries to persuade Mildred to read with him, but he cannot alter her views. He then seeks out Faber, an ex-professor he once met in a park. He convinces Faber to help him plan to return books to the world. Guy becomes so possessed with revealing the errors of his society that he terrifies a group of Mildred's friends by reading poetry to them. Guy realizes he has gone too far and returns to the firehouse, taking a book to surrender. Beatty accepts the book and then overwhelms him with a flood of contradictory quotes from great authors. An alarm takes them to Guy&ap...