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Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is about a futuristic fireman’s moral transformation. But don’t worry—there’s plenty of action to go along with Bradbury’s not-so-subtle message. You’ll hear all about it as Jenny takes on the plot of Fahrenheit 451.

Video Transcription:

True story: Ray Bradbury wrote this book in nine days, on a rented typewriter that he had to pay (by the half hour!) to use. No wonder the plot of Fahrenheit 451 races along at such a breakneck speed.

Guy Montag is a fireman. But not the kind that puts out fires. The kind that starts them. He burns books for a living. And the houses that house the books. And sometimes the people who own the houses.

Then Guy meets his new neighbor, Clarisse, a girl who thinks for herself and who wakes him up to the idea that things could be different …

Can you hear the alarm bells? Can you see the fire licking at Guy’s heels?

That’s because, in a morally-bankrupt society like Guy’s, it’s hard to have a moral transformation and not go unnoticed.

Beatty, the fire chief, discovers that Guy’s been squirreling away the books he’s supposed to burn. He discovers Guy’s connection with a book-loving professor named Faber.

And then?

Here’s where the rented typewriter comes in. Can you see Bradbury’s fingers flying? Montag torches Beatty, becomes a fugitive, is chased through the city by a mechanical hound (otherwise known as the killing machine), escapes to the country, hooks up with a bunch of intellectual outcasts, watches an apocalypse and …

Ding! I guess time must have been up, because the story ends with Montag walking off with his fellow book-lovers into the sunshine.