Fahrenheit 451 question 3

3. One of the universal themes in this book, Fahrenheit 451, is happiness. In the book Guy Montag is faced with the question, “Are you happy?” He is trying to find what will truly make him happy. He comes to realize that his job does not make him happy. His wife, Mildred, does not make him happy. In the book he is trying to understand why Clarisse McClellan is happy. Why she is so strange yet happy, genuinely happy. He wants the same happiness that Clarisse McClellan has. The more he goes on living like he had his entire adult life he realizes that he is becoming unhappy. So throughout the book Guy Montag is trying to find happiness, the burning of houses and books used to make him happy. Now that he had seen happiness in a different light, he was trying to attain that level of real happiness and joy. Ray Bradbury understands that it is human nature to desire to fit in. He understands that people are always trying to be normal. They do not want to stand out. It is especially obvious at the junior high and high school levels. No one wants to be different in the crowed. This is key to the book because this is one of the main conflicts in the book. Guy Montag is faced with a choice do I stay “normal” and keep going to my job and forget this silly idea that may make me fall flat on my face, or do I go after this idea of true happiness? As he grew more unhappy he knew that he had to go against the grain of the wood. He had to seek true happiness in the last place he knew to look, the books that he was supposed to destroy. If it was not human nature to want to fit in, then this book would lose a lot of its conflict, and it would just be about a man who could not make up his mind about what to do.