In today's society, people react to what is happening around them in different ways. Some decide they don't know enough and decide to learn more. Others either think they know enough or don't care. In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, two of the main characters demonstrate these traits. Bradbury uses people and symbols to convey his message: if people do not begin to cherish their freedom in knowledge, they will lose it. Bradbury also uses the overabundance of technology to show how people's understanding of how the world works is deteriorating. Through the characters Guy Montag and his wife Mildred Montag, Bradbury demonstrates the willingness, and lack thereof, to learn, the effect that society and technology have on them, and how both respond to knowledge and to the insight of books when given the opportunity. .Guy Montag, usually referred to as "Montag", is a third-generation firefighter in the world of Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury 42). His world is a place where firefighters start fires rather than put them out; until the beginning of the book, he does not question anything he is told (Bradbury 15). Montag goes through a series of events that make him doubt what he always knew. He learns that not everyone is what his society considers normal, and when a woman is burned alive, he feels he needs to know more about what these books are about (Bradbury 16, 35 ). As these events unfold before him, Guy becomes more and more intrigued by the books. He becomes so intrigued that he steals a book from the woman's house before burning it, which he has been doing for some time (Bradbury 34, 53). Throughout all of this, Montag realizes that he is quite unhappy with his life, but he doesn't know...... middle of paper ......or lose their perception of the world, but also if they happened to be so far from their knowledge, their society and their humanity as they knew it would cease to exist. Works Cited Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. PDF. Patai, Daphne. “Ray Bradbury and the Assault on Free Thought.” Society 50.1 (2013): 41-47. Academic research completed. Internet. April 20, 2014. Sisario, Peter. "A Study of the Allusions in Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451'" The English Journal 59.2 February (1970): 201+. JSTOR. Internet. April 20, 2014. Smolla, Rodney A. “The Life of the Mind and a Meaningful Life: Reflections on “Fahrenheit 451”” Michigan Law Review Survey of Books Related to the Law 107.6 (2009): 895-912. JSTOR. Internet. April 20, 2014. Telgen, Diane, ed. “Fahrenheit 451: Ray Bradbury 1953.” Novels for students. Flight. 1. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1997. 138-57. Print.