In his book “Fahrenheit 451”, Ray Bradbury presents a dystopian world where reading books is outlawed and there is a special caste of firemen who burn every book that they find. The title of the novel signifies the temperature at which paper self-ignites, and this number is marked on the helmets and sleeves of the firemen. Their official slogan is “burn ’em to ashes, then bum the ashes” (3). Book burning in the novel serves as a metaphor for eliminating dissenting and free-thinking ideas, which is typical for totalitarian societies that attach little value to human life.

The main hero of the novel, Guy Montag, is a fireman who derives immense pleasure from seeing the books go ablaze and then blacken. However, he is deeply unhappy with his life, which his new acquaintance Clarisse makes him recognize. When he comes back home, he can clearly see that his wife is not happy either as she is lying overdosed with pills.

The carelessness of the operators who provide emergency care to Mildred emphasizes the negligible value of a person in a totalitarian society. After this event, Montag gets immersed into thoughts about the the relations between people in the world:
“There are too many of us, he thought. There are billions of us and that’s too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life!” (7)
Thus, Montag is presented as a sensitive person who has not lost the ability to think and he is frightened with the world that surrounds him. After she comes to consciousness, Mildred does not remember anything; she wears her own mask of happiness again, triumphing over the new part she received and persuading Montag to buy the fourth wall-TV, though they have not yet paid for the third one. This detail highlights that the people in this society are zombies: they do not want to think about anything, they just want to watch foolish TV series with happy ending and keep pretending that everything is all right. At school, children do not have an opportunity to ask questions: they are merely bombarded with answers by film-teachers, while the core of the education consists of sports. Everybody talks about the same things, repeating the same old jokes. At the museums, all the exhibits are abstract and people cannot believe that one upon a time pictures could represent real people or include text.

It is only due to his talks with Clarisse, Montag has a chance to review his outlook and to questions his principles. She makes him understand that he is neither happy nor has he felt true love in his life. She is romantic girl who looks at the moon, tastes the rain and admires dandelions, while everyone else has lost the ability be fascinated with anything. Clarisse has a free-thinking and liberal spirit that makes everyone think that she is insane and anti-social, which is the reason why she was cast out of school. This detail reveals that everyone who fails to comply with the rules and stereotypes in a totalitarian society will certainly be stigmatized and marginalized. It is also demonstrated in the case with a man who is sent to the asylum just because he protected his own library. Commenting on her relations with other people, Clarisse says, “I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always used to be that way?” (14). It has come to be a norm that people hit and hurt each other, and there are only few people who can oppose to it.

The apathy and indifference of the people in the dystopian society is revealed at its most when Montag relates to his wife that he burned a woman alive with her books the previous night, but Mildred does not care at all, labeling such people as radicals and having no mercy for them. After Clarisse is dead, Montag has not a single person in the world who can understand and share his deeply-concealed humanistic views. Portraying such a frightening society, where there is no place for free thinking, Ray Bradbury warns his readers of the dangers of totalitarianism and urges them to question the conventions of the society, even if they are perceived as fully normal and obligatory by the other people.