In Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," people live in a society that is very different from the real world; nobody reads books, nobody likes to walk on the street, people drive fast, and everyone likes to watch TV. "We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something's missing" (Bradbury 82). Montag was a firefighter who lives a normal life like everyone else in his society, until he meets a girl who asks him, " are you happy?"(7). This girl, named Clarisse, talks a lot about her observations of nature with Montag and inspires him to think about why he is not happy. Montag realizes the books he burns every single day are the missing part of this unhappy world, and he finds real happiness from books and nature, rather than indulging in artificial happiness from television entertainment.
The young girl, named Clarisse, enjoys nature and thinks independently led Montag to a brand new, really happy world. Guy Montag used to be a fireman whose job was starting fires and burning books. He loves his job and never doubts his job or is curious about the reason why he should burn books for the ten years of his working life. One night, he meets his new neighbor, a seventeen year old girl, called Clarisse McClellan, and has a wonderful conversation with her. She tells Guy about the history of the fireman, "Is it ture that long ago fireman put fires out instead of going to start them?" (Bradbury 6). She is an "odd" person who always asks questions and explores the true reasons behind everything. She asks Guy a random question which changes his life. "Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. 'Are you happy?' she said"(Bradbury 7). In this case, Guy is fairly confused about the word "happy", and thinks it is nonsense because he believes that he is happy all the time.