On a rainy night while returning from his job as a fireman, Guy Montag meets his new neighbor Clarisse McClellan, whose free-thinking ideals and liberating spirit force him to question his life, his ideals, and his own perceived happiness. Montag returns home to find that his wife Mildred has overdosed on sleeping pills, and calls for help. Since drug overdoses have become commonplace, the hospital sends two impersonal technicians to pump her stomach and replace her blood. The next day, Montag finds Mildred in the kitchen, eating a big breakfast and rambling how she feels hungry and has no memory of what she did the night before, blaming it on supposedly having a party and drinking so much that she blacked out. Before leaving for work, Montag tries to tell Mildred (who is watching an interactive TV program on three oversized screens that have been installed in the living room) that she overdosed, but Mildred denies that she would do anything that suicidal. For the next few days, Montag bonds with Clarisse, who tells him about how she has to see a therapist about her allegedly anti-social behavior, how school has become boring now that it's been devoid of intellectual content, and how her peers enjoy violent, shallow entertainment (such as street-racing, bullying people, and dancing) and treat her as an outcast. One day, however, Clarisse goes missing and Montag begins seriously considering how hollow his life is. While talking to Mildred one night, Mildred mutters that Clarisse died after getting hit by a speeding car and the rest of her family moved out following her death.
In the following days, while at work with the other firemen ransacking the book-filled house of an old woman before the inevitable burning, Montag accidentally reads a line in one of her books: "Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine". This prompts him to steal one of the books. The woman refuses to leave her house and her books, choosing instead to light a match and burn herself alive. This act disturbs Montag, who wonders why someone would die for books, which he (and the rest of society) considers to be without value. Jarred by the woman's suicide, Montag becomes physically ill and calls for sick leave. Fire chief Captain Beatty visits him at home to tell him the history of the firemen. He tells Montag that interest in books declined gradually over several decades as the public embraced mass-marketed new media and a quickening pace in life. Over time, books (save for trade papers, comics, and pornographic magazines) fell out of favor due to minorities protesting over controversial content, and the government had no choice but to have them suppressed to please everyone. While they are talking, Mildred feels the book hidden under Montag's pillow and reacts with surprise. Beatty adds casually that all firemen eventually steal a book out of curiosity, but all is well if the book is burned within 24 hours.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 )