Have I changed? Kenzie*(:

In the book, Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses the character Guy Montag to symbolize that everyone has the chance to change but, they have to be willing to do it. Clarisse McClellan is the main reason Montag starts to pay attention to his way of life. She influences his way of looking at his life in a more realistic way. When Montag first meets Clarisse, his life was a complete mess. He was forced to believe his life was perfect and that he was happy. Clarisse was this bright, exuberant teenager who could think for herself and saw straight through the barricade that the government was putting on the world. Montag started to realize that his life wasn't as good as he thought it was. Clarisse helped him realize that he was truly not happy with himself and his life. He was just this ordinary, dull firemen who focused his life around his work. When Clarisse came along she opened up Montag's eyes and showed him how bad his life truly was. Montag finally figured it out when Clarisse asked him, "Are you happy?" He replied with, "Of coarse I'm happy!" when he truly wasn't and he knew it. Clarisse became his only true friend. Guy never knew what it was like to have a friend. The government made it so people were basically not allowed to be social because they could possibly become educated and start to figure out what the government is really doing to them.

One night at work, the firemen got a call that there was a house that needed to be burnt down because this old women had books in her home. When they got there and was going through her home looking for the books and Montag was the one to find them. As he was bringing the books into the light and onto the floor, he read some lines of one of the books and he wanted to know more about it so he took it home with him and hid it with the other ones. She burnt herself alive! For books!! Who would do that? Someone very dedicated to her books. This really made Montag think about what he has to live for. Anything? Anything at all? No, nothing.

Montag knew he was truly unhappy with his life, so he started to think about what he could do to help him become happy. He thought about his marriage and relationship with his wife, Mildred. Yes, they were technically married, but they were not happy. They really didn't have much of a relationship, this also contributed to Montag's unhappiness. The only true relationship he had with anything was he friendship with Clarisse. She made his life worth wild.

Kenzie*(: