Fahrenheit 451: Novel Notes

Part Three: Burning Bright

Critical Thinking: When Montag looks at the empty McClellan house, what does Beatty intuitively understand?

aesthetic, adj. 1. pertaining to a sense of beauty or to aesthetics. 2. having a sense or love of beauty. – aesthetically, adv. aesthetics, n. The branch of philosophy dealing with beauty in nature and art.

Part III, Section Two

Questions: The Facts

1. What time in the morning is it when the fire burns down?

2. When Beatty strikes Montag on the head, what happens?

3. What does Beatty say he’ll do about the two-way radio?

4. How does the unarmed Beatty respond to Montag’s holding a flame-throwing ready to use on him?

5. What does Montag do to the Captain? To the other firemen?

6. What does the Hound do when it arrives to stop Montag?

Critical Thinking: Why does Beatty act so foolishly when he knows Montag is armed?

Part III, Section One : Getting Started Montag - plus - Faber , fire plus water QUESITON: What does the above mean?

QUE STIONS: The Facts

. Why were lights going on all down the street? 1 2 . What does Faber recommend to Montag? . What does Millie seem so upset about? 3

. Whom does Beatty assign to burn the house? 4

5 . What is the last thing Beatty says to Montag?

Significance? Response? Reaction? Notes? ( NOTE: Pretend like there is a bubble like this for every note and quotation you come across in this packet.)

Part III, Section Three

Questions: The Facts

1. After Montag starts to run away, he turns back. For what?

2. How does Montag feel about Beatty’s death?

3. How does the pain change in Montag’s leg as he runs on it?

4. What does Montag soon hear on the radio?

5. Where is Montag instinctively running?

6. What kind of vehicles are searching for Montag?

Critical Thinking:

While Montag is sobbing from the pain, he suddenly decides that “Beatty wanted to die.” Do you think he’s right? ________________ What reasons could you give to support the idea?

1.

2.

3.

4.

Is Montag a murderer? Give some evidence for or against the idea:

Montag’s Action Montag’s Reason Motive for Murder?

Analysis: How do you compare Bradbury’s choice for the titles of the three parts of this novel?

and PartTwo and Part Three

Explain the connection between all three here:

Part III, Section Four

Questions: The Facts

1. How wide is the street Montag wants to cross?

2. Who does Montag think is after him in the car, at first?

3. “The beetle came in a single whistling trajectory . . . . “ What other object in the story does this description sound like?

“The Hearth and the Salamander”

“The Sieve and the Sand” “Burning Bright”

Themes and signif icance of Themes and significance of the title for Part One the title for Part Two

Commonalities Commonalities of Part One of Part Two

4. How old does Montag think the people in the car must be?

5. What is Montag still holding on to this whole time?

Critical Thinking:

Why isn’t Montag shocked to hear that war has been declared?

What kind of war is it?

When the story says that “The boulevard was as clean as the surface of an arena two minutes before the appearance of certain unnamed victims and certain unknown killers,” what “sports” come to your mind?

Why do you think Bradbury uses this description?

In what ways can you compare the Mechanical Hound to the beetle car that chases Montag? 1.

2.

3.

4.

Part III, Section Six

Questions: The Facts

1. When does Faber say he is leaving? How much time has elapsed since the beginning of Part Three?

2. Why do Faber and Montag both look around the inside of the house with such alarm?

3. Where is Montag needed?

As Montag imagines himself being caught by the Hound on TV as millions watch, he wonders:

Would he have time for a speech? As the Hound seized him, in view of ten or twenty or thirty million people, mightn’t he

sum up his entire life in the last week in one single phrase or a word that would stay with them long after the Hound had

turned, clenching him in its metal-plier jaws, and trotted off in darkness . . . What could he say in a single word, a few

words, that would sear all their faces and wake them up?

**What’s Montag’s answer to his own question? What single word or short phrase should he say to those

watching that would “wake them up”?

Part III, Section Seven

Questions: The Facts

1. What happens when the hound gets to Faber’s house?

2. What do the police suggest to the people of Elm Terrace?

3. What time is it now in the story?

4. What day is it?

Critical Thinking:

How many people are watching the TV chase—and why do the viewers do exactly what the TV announcer tell them to?

What does the above tell you about people in this society?

How would people today react? What are the similarities and differences? What would you do, and

what would you like to think you would do?

If you had to give a title to this section, what would you call it?

Part III, Section Eight

Questions: The Facts

1. As Montag floats down the river, what does he daydream about?

2. What does he think would bother Mildred about the country?

3. What does Montag soon run into as he walks along?

Critical Thinking:

Montag goes into a long half-dream about sleeping in a barn, and seeing a beautiful young woman in a window, waking up the next morning, and finding fresh fruit and milk for breakfast. Who do you think is most likely the woman in this scene? Is there any evidence from the text?

Why do you think Montag is acting so strangely in this section? How would you describe it?

Part III, Section Nine

• Juggernaut n. any large, overpowering, destructing force or object

• Cardamom n. A rhizomatous Indian herb (Elettaria cardamomum) having capsular fruits with aromatic seeds used as a spice or condiment

How might the above vocabulary words indicate something of symbolic significance in this section?

PREDICTION (Before you read, this is what you might have said):

REFLECTION (After you read, this is what you now believe):

Questions: FACTS and the CRITICAL THINKING

1. (a) How are the men around the fire dressed? (b) Are these the hobos? (c) What do you think is so important about the hobos acting like “dust-jackets for books” and not pedants.

a.

b.

c.

The Hobos

Describe the imagery

of the “DUST JACKET”

reference

Define the word

“PEDANT” and

explain its

significance

COMPARE – find

similarities between

the two…

CONTRAST THEM—

Identify incongruous

aspects of the two…

What does it say in the book about what/who the hobos have saved? What would add to this list? Is

there any knowledge that you do not think should be saved? Why?

• Three things to save and why:

• Three things that MAY NOT be worth saving and why or why not:

THE BIG QUESTION: What does Granger mean when he says, “until another Dark Age”?

Part III, Section Ten

What time is it? Does it matter? How do you feel about Montag wearing a watch—does it seem like it is

appropriate to where and who is he now?

“Perhaps he had expected their faces to burn and glitter with the knowledge they carried, to glow as lanterns glow, with the light in them.” This quotation from Section 10 is an allusion to the title of Part

Three. Give evidence to support this:

REFLECTING ON SYMBOLS (Identify as many as possible):

Part One Part Two Part Three

“The Hearth and the

Salamander”

“The Sieve and the Sand” “Burning Bright”

WHAT

DOES

WATER

SYMBOLIZE

IN THIS PART?

WHAT

DOES

FIRE

SYMBOLIZE

IN THIS PART?

Consider the following in the above chart:

Water as associated with baptism Fire as associated with purging,

destroying

Water as a way to “flush” things away Fire as associated with rebirth (the

phoenix)

Water and the river Fire as associated with war

Water and Clarisse Fire and Beatty

Water and Montag Fire and Montag

Water and Mildred Fire and Mildred

Part III, Section Eleven

After the men are knocked down, Montag blinks and looks.

1. What bizarre sight does he see?

2. What has just happened?

3. What is he thinking and feeling?

4. Montag knows what time it is. Why? What time is it?

Montag’s “teachers”: What have each of the following characters taught Montag?

1) Clarisse 4) Faber

2) Mildred 5) Granger

3) Beatty 6) Montag himself

Vocabulary :

Look up the word status quo. How is this appropriately thematic to the novel as a whole?

Critical Thinking:

Both Faber (in Part Two, Section Four) and Granger (in this last section) tell Montag that he should not ask for guarantees. What kind of guarantees do you think each of them mean? What would Beatty have to say to each of them?

o Faber:

What would Beatty’s response be?

o Granger:

What would Beatty’s response be?

Granger’s long description of his grandfather in this section ranks in importance with Beatty’s lecture in Part One on the history of the firemen. Faber’s speech in Part Two about the “three missing things” is of similar significance. Explain:

Granger’s commentary is intended as a reply to Montag’s worry that he doesn’t even care if his wife is dead. Do you think Montag really cares? If so, why? If not, why not? (Provide evidence for both)

Reread Granger’s speech and see if you can explain how it is meant to show Montag why he can’t feel anything for Millie, and that he is not the problem.

Part III, Section Twelve

• What information pops back into Montag’s mind, which he then tries to hold in his memory?

• Why do all the men start shouting at the same time? What earlier similar scenes come to mind?

• When they walk north to help in the city, who leads?

PART III (OVERVIEW): IDENTIFYING THEMES (Refer to below themes; directions on next page)

Mass Media

Conformity vs.

Individuality

Censorship

Distraction vs. Happiness

Action vs. Inaction

Directions: Associate one or more theme or themes (from the previous page) for each of the following plot points from “Burning Bright.” Give a short defense for each.

1. Mildred is so emotionally disconnected that she's able to turn in her husband and slip off in a taxi to start another life without a

word of farewell. After all, she can be with her TV "relatives" anywhere.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

2. Montag burning down his own house recalls the old woman who burned down her house instead of allowing the firemen do it.

THEME(s):

DEFENSE:

3. Beatty is aggressive up to the last moment. He taunts Montag—who has just lost his house, his wife, and his liberty—with lines from Shakespeare. This seems like a very unwise way to thwart someone with a loaded flamethrower, unless you have a death wish.

Montag's actions, meanwhile, have made him an outright enemy of the state.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

4. Why does Beatty continue to taunt Montag? Does Beatty in fact want to die—is his provocation of Montag a form of suicide? It's another suggestion that Beatty, who quotes so readily and fluently from the same books he destroys, is himself a tortured soul who

regrets his decision to remain a book-destroying fireman.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

5. The teenagers who try to run down Montag—a stranger they know nothing about—are a typical sample of Clarisse's peers. The

younger generation is, if anything, even worse than Montag's generation. The future for this society looks grim.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

6. The live coverage of the manhunt, complete with helicopter footage and running commentary, is another of Bradbury's predictions that came to pass in the United States before the end of the 20th century (see OJ Simpson). It also shows the intoxicating power of

television: for a moment, Montag himself is spellbound by the spectacle. He almost wants to stay and watch until the end so he can

see himself on-screen as the Hound's victim.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

7. Since everyone's TV is tuned to the chase, Montag is able to be both fugitive and audience at the same time. But notice how easily the authorities can use the TV and radio to mobilize the masses to look for Montag. Here Bradbury is showing how TV and radio

can be used to turn individuals into a mob that can executive the will of a central authority. Media like TV and radio are much

more powerful and potentially destructive than books because books alone cannot mobilize a populace. Unlike TV and radio,

books can't be controlled from a central source.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

8. The wild outdoors and the darkness of nighttime affect Montag deeply—he is truly engaging with the natural world. Whether or not Clarisse actually walked along those same rails, it was her conversations with Montag that prepared him to appreciate and pay

attention to the natural world—the world in which he now finds himself utterly alone. THEME(s):

DEFENSE:

9. Montag finds a deep joy in the natural world that he never found in the commotion and distractions of the city. He also feels more like himself. By engaging with the world, he finds himself. The men around the fire are similar to Faber, in that they are educated

and thoughtful, but have chosen to live as fugitives outside of society. In this way, they are like a combination of Montag and

Faber. Notice, also, how the authorities use television to lie to their people.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

10. Montag's limited but passionate attempts at reading have paid off—he has something to contribute to the effort. Granger

describes Montag as a copy of the Book of Ecclesiastes, implying that his knowledge of the book is his main importance.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

11. Humankind has returned to an oral tradition of literature, as in the time of Homer, when long works of poetry were memorized and recited. In a sense, these men are waiting for society to be reborn, to rise from its own ashes until it is safe again to write down

works of literature.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

12. The men know that their effort and sacrifice don't guarantee success, but they have given themselves to the cause of preserving

knowledge and that gives them an identity.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

13. Here Granger clearly expresses the idea of the importance of individual engagement with the world. Someone who conforms and does not think or act for themselves, such as Mildred, leaves no trace of themselves because they don't affect the world. But those

who act as individuals, as Montag has started to do, change the world, even if just a bit. THEME(s):

DEFENSE:

14. Faber described the mass media as having lost touch with reality, just as Hercules lifted Antaeus from the ground. Now, as the city and that mass media society is destroyed, Montag huddles against the ground. In the process, he reconnects with his past and

remembers where he met Mildred.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

15. The phoenix, with its connection to fire, appears throughout the book. On Beatty's helmet, it symbolized fire's destructive power.

Now, though, it symbolizes rebirth from war and from the nightmare mass media society that had taken over the United States.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

16. Granger implies that the value of the literature they've memorized is that it forces people to recognize and think about

themselves—in doing so, it provides the self-knowledge and wisdom needed to rebuild.

THEME(s): DEFENSE:

PART III (OVERVIEW): Quotations (Who said it? What theme/s are related with each?) “The sun burnt every day. It burnt Time... Time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen and the sun burnt time, that meant that everything burnt!”

Character mentioned or related: ____________________________

Related themes:

"We're nothing more than dust jackets for books, of no significance otherwise."

Speaker: ____________________________

Related themes:

"...We're going to build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them."

Speaker: ____________________________

Related themes:

"Now . . ., you’re a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical."

Speaker: ____________________________ Character being addressed: ____________________________

Related themes:

"What is it about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?... It's perpetual motion; the thing man wanted

to invent but never did. Or almost perpetual motion. If you let it go on, it'd burn our lifetimes out."

Speaker: ____________________________

Related themes:

Vocabulary Part Three “Burning Bright”

Section 1

1. aesthetic

Section 2

1. Cassius*

2. litterateur (as in “second-hand litterateur”)

3. liquefaction

4. procaine

Section 4

1. phosphorescent

2. scuttling

Section 8

1. juggernaut

2. cardamom

Section 9

1. Mahatma Gandhi*

2. Gautama Buddha*

3. Confucius*

4. Matthew, Mark, Luke,

John*

5. [Jose] Ortega y

Gasset*

6. Book of Ecclesiastes*

7. Revelations*

8. Plato’s Republic*

9. Schopenhauer*

10. Albert Schweitzer*

11. Aristophanes*

12. Byron*

13. Machiavelli*

14. Thoreau’s Walden*

15. Bertrand Russell*

Section 11

1. status quo

2. metropolis

Lastly, but not leastly…. Complete the Stasis Theory Chart for Fahrenheit 451, Part 3: “Burning Bright”

For each of the four questions of Stasis Theory, write four questions for each type. Circle the one from each row

you feel is not only best written, but is the most deeply challenging in terms of critical thinking and argument.

Refer back to Part 3 of the novel, but you may also consider the novel as a whole at this point. Good luck!

QUESTION

OF….

EXAMPLE

FROM TKAM

Write several of your own questions based on your reading from the novel

Fahrenheit 451, Part One “The Hearth and the Salamander”

FACT

What are the

cultural vs.

reasons that

Tom is accused

of rape in To Kill

a Mockingbird?

Question of Fact #1

Question of Fact

#2

Question of Fact

#3

Question of Fact

#4

Did

something

happen? Is it

real? What

is its origin

or cause?

DEFINITION

What is the

nature of

Atticus’

responsibilities

in representing

Tom in To Kill a

Mockingbird?

Question of

Definition #1

Question of

Definition #2

Question of

Definition #3

Question of

Definition #4

What is its

nature?

What are its

parts? How

is it

classified?

QUALITY

Is Atticus’ legal

representation

of Tom to Tom’s

benefit? Did

Atticus do all he

could?

Question of Quality

#1

Question of

Quality #2

Question of

Quality #3

Question of

Quality #4

What is its

quality? Is it

good or

bad?

Harmful or

helpful?

POLICY

Should lawyers

be forced to

take cases they

do not want or

cannot win?

Question of Policy

#1

Question of Policy

#2

Question of

Policy #3

Question of

Policy #4

What

actions

should be

taken? How

can we

make things

better?

Did you know?

Guy Montag is…

An allusion to Harold Montag, owner of a company called “Montag Bros. Paper

Company” – the largest in the world at the time?

Also the name of a furnace company?

Also a nod to the infamous Guys Fawkes, who in 1605 was an integral part of a

successful conspiracy to blow up parliament in England?

Suggestive of anybody and everybody, simply because his first name is “guy,”

and therefore this novel speaks to every one of us?

Clarisse’s Name… Is Latin for brightest?

Ray Bradbury… Needed just nine days to write Fahrenheit 451, which he did at the UCLA

library rented typewriters (10 cents), which were located in its basement.

The total cost to write the novel, not including paper, was $9.50.