What are the causes, gains and losses of the conflict dealt with in this book?
Again, this question is pretty much one of the standard questions asked by pretty much every teacher in the entire world. Someone must have really like this question, because its always asked about every book I've ever read. I believe that the conflict in this book is between Guy and himself. An internal conflict in a book really opens up the novel for interpretation, and it adds a certain literary element to the story that really hooks the reader and has them playing devil's advocate with themselves. At the beginning of the story, Guy just did his job without even thinking about it. He had no problems burning the books (I find it ironic that he was known as a fireman, but he was actually starting fires, not putting them out). Once he met Clarisse, however, then things were completely different. Guy had a new lease on life, but that's where the conflict came in. Should he listen to the girl, or stick with what society was doing? Since Guy lived in a society where no one questioned any thing or had a sense of free thinking, I would not have been surprised if he would have ignored her and continued his life as normal. But no. He chose to listen to her and she changed his life. That is another message shared by the story, it only takes one person to change someones life. Guy had this whole new idea on life and even though it did get him into trouble, it led him to a group of people who shared similar ideas with him and saved him from the impending doom of society. Yes, Guy lost everything. The city was bombed and everything, including the books, were destroyed. But that gave Guy and the other intellectuals a chance to start over and do things the way that they wanted to. It changed their lives and gave them the ability to think for themselves and read as many books as they wanted to (as soon as they wrote them...).
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 1953. Print.
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