In the future, a totalitarian government will employ a force known as Firemen to seek out and destroy all literature. They can search anyone, anywhere, at any time, and burn any books they find. One of the firemen, Guy Montag, meets one of his neighbors, Clarisse, a young teen who may be on the government's radar due to her unorthodox views. The two discuss his job, and she asks whether he ever reads the books he burns. Curious, he begins to hide books in his house and read them, starting with Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. This leads to conflict with his wife, Linda, who is more concerned with being popular enough to be a member of The Family, an interactive television program that refers to its viewers as "cousins".
At the house of an illegal book collector, the fire captain, Beatty, talks with Montag at length about how books make people unhappy and make them want to think that they are better than others, which is considered anti-social. The book collector, an old woman who was seen with Clarisse a few times during Montag's rides to and from work, refuses to leave her house, opting instead to burn herself and the house so that she can die with her books.
Returning home that day, Montag tries to tell Linda and her friends about the woman who martyred herself in the name of books and confronts them about knowing anything about what's going on in the world, calling them zombies and telling them that they're just killing time instead of living life. Disturbed over Montag's behavior, Linda's friends try to leave, but Montag stops them by forcing them to sit and listen to him read a passage from the novel David Copperfield.[7] During the reading, one of Linda's friends breaks down crying, aware of the feelings she repressed over the years, while Linda's other friends leave in disgust over Montag's alleged cruelty and the ''sick'' content of the novel.
That night, Montag dreams of Clarisse as the book collector who killed herself. The same night, Clarisse's house is raided, but she escapes through a trapdoor in the roof, thanks to her uncle. Montag breaks into Beatty's office, looking for information about the missing Clarisse, and is caught but not punished.
Montag meets with Clarisse and helps her break back into her house to destroy papers that would bring the Firemen to others like her. She tells him of the "book people", a hidden sect of people who flout the law, each of whom has memorised a book to keep it alive. Later, Montag tells Beatty that he is resigning but is convinced to go on one more call, which turns out to be Montag's own house.
Linda leaves the house, telling Montag that she couldn't live with his book obsession and leaves him to be punished by the Firemen. Angrily, he destroys the bedroom and television before setting fire to the books. Beatty lectures him about the books and pulls a last book from Montag's coat, for which Montag kills him with the flamethrower. He escapes and finds the book people, where he views his "capture" on television, staged to keep the masses entertained and because the government doesn't want it to be known that he is alive. Montag selects a book to memorise, Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe, and becomes one of the book people.
