Two Sides Of Conflict In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Many people have experienced the issue of being caught between two sides and feeling that there is no possible way to have a positive outcome on both sides. This is an essential problem for the main character Montag in the book Fahrenheit 451. Montag is faced with the conflict of having the obligation to burn books, but the desire to learn the value and secrets of literature. The issue between Montag’s two interests help to convey the overall meaning of the writing.
The first side of Montag’s conflict is his job as a firefighter. He has the onus of burning books so nobody can obtain the knowledge that is held in books because it is believed to cause disagreement and unhappiness. Montag realizes that people are unhappy even without books. The second side of the conflict is …show more content…
“We’ve got to start somewhere here, figuring out why we’re in such a mess, you and the medicine nights, and the car, and me and my work. We’re heading right for the cliff, Mille” (Bradbury 66). This quote is right when Montag takes the books he hid out of the ventilator. He is telling Mildred that he wants to read the books to figure out why mildred and himself are so unhappy. He also believes that books must have value if a lady was willing to be burned alive for the books. The issue is that Montag knows that he won’t be able to continue to be a firefighter and pursue his desire of discovering the reason for his unhappiness through the information in literature.
The conflict that is present in the mind of Montag helps to develop the book and help the reader better understand the main idea that the author is trying to convey. At first the conflict shows that Montag doesn’t view the people in the society that he lives in as happy. This is because if everyone was actually happy there wouldn’t be so many people overdosing on sleeping pills and perhaps other drugs. Montag himself also use to think that he was happy burning