Fahrenheit 451 Study Guide

Answers
1. Q: Explain the significance of Beattys saying, Old Montag wanted to
fly near the sun and now that hes burnt his damn wings, he wonders
why.

A: In many ways Montag's story up to this point parallels the Icarus myth.
First of all, Montag is being lead by Faber, an older man who has devised
Montag's means of "escape"; a plan to destroy the fire houses. Faber
continually warns Montag against rash action, and Montag frequently ignores
Faber - he reads poetry in front of his wife and her friends, he talks to Faber
through the earpiece in the presence of others, and he lets Beatty confuse
and scare him when he returns to the firehouse. Like Icarus, Montag is
warned about the dangers of recklessness and self-involvement.

2. Q: Who called the alarm to Montags house/

A: Mildred and her friends, Mrs. Clara Phelps and Mrs. Ann Bowles

3. Q: What draws us all to fire, according to Beatty?

A: Speaking to Montag, Beatty talks about the properties of fire, and why it is
so important to mankind: "What is there about fire that's so lovely? No
matter what age we are, what draws us to it?" Beatty blew out the flame and
lit it again. "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."

4. Who is Montag talking to while Beatty is talking to him, telling Montag

he must burn his own house/

A: Faber

5. How does Montag feel as he torched his house?

 If you look closely at the beginning of section three of the book, Bradbury
has a very descriptive passage about Montag's feelings as he is forced to
torch his own house. Montag feels a strange detachment--you might think
that he would be super upset about having to burn down his entire house,
and everything that he knew, but he almost seemed relieved. Bradbury
writes "he wanted to change everything...that showed that he had lived
here in this empty house with a strange woman who would forget him
tomorrow, who had gone and quite forgotten him already...and as before,
it was good to burn,...[to] put away the senseless problem."This passage
indicates that Montag actually felt good as he burned his house. It was
getting rid of an empty life that meant nothing to him, of a house that no
longer represented how he felt about living. It burned the entire past,
including Mildred, who he realizes doesn't really love him, and gives him a
fresh slate to start new with. He has changed so much from the first time
we met him, and everything that his old life represented means nothing to
him now. So, burning it is a sort of cathartic experience, unanchoring him
from the "senseless problems" of his past. And, just like in the beginning
of the book, burning was a pleasure, but this time, for different reasons.
In the beginning, it was because he enjoyed the pure fantastic thrill of it;
now, it is his symbolic phoenix going up in ashes, and he is free to
rebuild. He is now free from it all, to act how he desires.

6. What was Montags mistake that led to his being caught?

The biggest mistake that Montag has made was showing Mildred's friends his
books and reading a poem to them. He had acted out of anger, and he
shouldn't have done that. Maybe he wouldn't have gotten caught with the
books if he hadn't shown Mildred's friends.

7. Why cant Montag run away from Beatty and the others and simply
escape?

Faber again suggests that Montag run away, but he responds (aloud,
which is not so smart) that he cant because of the Hound.

8. What does Beatty discover that helps propel Montag toward violence?

The green bullet communication device in his ear

9. When Montag points the flame thrower at Beatty, why does Beatty
quote Shakespeare?
 Captain Beattys dying words are quoted from Shakespeares Julius Caesar:
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am armd so strong in
honesty that they pass me in an idle wind, which I respect not!.Bradbury
has chosen these final words for Beatty to show the readers that by using
literature, Beatty dares Montag to end his life. There is a sense of irony in the
cause of Beattys death because what drives Captain Beatty to die is the
shame of discovering that he had been lying to himself about his feelings for
books. Captain Beatty was not worried about any threats because he already
wanted to die,(122) he didnt fear death, on the contrary, he looked
forward to it. In Shakespeares Julius Caesar, the Caesar believes hes God
and that he has so much power that he needs to be reminded that he is
mortal. The fire chief is telling Montag, through literature, that he doesnt
care about anything Montag says because he believes in his ideas and he
doesnt respect Montags beliefs. Captain Beatty wants Montag to believe
what he says, despite the fact that he does not want to live with according to
what he is so firmly defending and with what he considers to be right. The
contradiction of Beattys character gives Fahrenheit 451 a more radical turn
as it compares self-censorship with the control of the government in society.
The novel shows how technology, the lack of books and education can
influence people and change culture. Beatty is a clear example of wasted
knowledge as he is influenced by society and the government. Even though
he is a literary expert Captain, society has manipulated him to lie to himself
and encouraged him to the burning of books, even if he knew perfectly their
value. Shakespearean themes are evident in the novel in subtle ways. There
is an unseen power (government controlling the city); brother betrays
brother in hiding books (Mildred informs on Montag); a jester offers
commentary (the White Clown, symbolizing the meaningless emotion of
television); an old person offers predictions and pronouncements (Faber,
explaining the state of the world); characters suffer from madness (Montag
has fits of delirium and rage from his conflicting emotions). The quote is
from Julius Caesar, where Brutus explains to Cassius that his threats are
meaningless because he, Brutus, is armed with honesty; even if he is killed,
people will take up his cause and avenge him. Beatty believes in his cause,
that the government should control the life of every individual, so he claims
to have no fear of death. Montag obliges.
10. What does Montag do to Beatty? How would you characterize the
language Bradbury uses in describing the action? How does that
language affect the readers reaction?

Montag uses the flamethrower to set Beatty on fire. Bradbury uses a lot of
similes, metaphors, and in depth, gory, cruel descriptions of Beatty
burning on the ground. He compares Beatty to a shrieking blaze, a
jumping sprawling gibbering manikin, no longer human or know just a
writhing flame on the lawn. He also describes Beatty as a monstrous black
snail that liquefied and boiled over into a yellow foam. He describes the
sound as a hiss like a spittle banging on a hot stove. This allows the
reader to truly feel like they are watching and listening to Beatty burn and
it makes the experience much more prideful and astonishing, because
after Montag lights Beatty on fire the readers are already taken aback.
The detailed descriptions just allows the readers feelings during this scene
intensify.

11. When Montag gets up, he had only one leg. The other was like
a chunk of a burnt pine log he was carrying along as a penance for
some obscure sin. Why?

This is because after Montag had burned Beatty to a crisp, and

knocked out the other two firemen, the Mechanical Hound jumped out
from the darkness and leapt towards Montag, penetrating his leg with
its needle and shooting procaine into his leg, ultimately numbing it and
making it useless and unable to use. Before the Hound could fill the
rest of Montags body with this numbing solvent.

12. What emotions does Montag experience as he gathers the books

from his gardens and then tries to escape?

He is first relieved and thankful that Mildred had at least left 4 books
there and he had not burned them all. But, as he is leaving he
suddenly collapse and this is when he realizes that Beatty had wanted
to die. After this epiphany, Montag has a sudden rush of courage and
hope. He yells at himself, telling himself that he cannot just sit there
and cry, but is still sickened by the fact that he has killed someone and
he had to finish crying before he could get back up and move on. He
hadnt wanted to kill anyone, but he did, and he hoped he could forgive
himself and apologized over and over. He was still human and had
 human feelings. He had to embrace them fully before he could
continue on for good.

13. What does Montag overhear when he is a the gas station? What
is his reaction?

He hears over the radio that war has been declared. Initially he was
shocked by this quiet statement, but Montag could not do anything to
deal with the war just yet. His main concern at the time was to get
himself safe and out of danger. So much was going through Montags
head at the time, that he just could not fully process what that
statement truly meant at the time.

14. Who nearly runs over Montag, and why?

Montag is almost run over by a group of teenagers, demonstrating the

disregard for human life in his society. When Montag is running away from
the Mechanical Hound after fleeing for his life following the murder of Beatty,
he thinks he is being chased by the police. When the car passes him, he
realizes that it was not the police after all. A carful of children, out
whistling, yelling, hurrahing, had seen a man, a very extraordinary sight, a
man strolling, a rarity, and simply said, "Let's get him," not knowing he was
the fugitive The fact that they do not know who he is and do not know
that he is on the run from the law demonstrates the lack of appreciation for
human life in their society. Clarisse mentions this to Montag earlier in the
novel, when she describes how kids routinely kill each other because they
are bored. The police do not care how fast a person drives as long as they
have ten thousand Insurance (Part I). Kids joyride around town and
intentionally try to hit pedestrians for the fun of it. Montag is horrified. Of
course, it would not have been much better if they were trying to catch him
because he was on the run. The lack of books has clearly degraded society.
People no longer care for one another. There is no emotion at all. Most of
them just stare at the television and ignore each other. Children dont have
responsibility, and neither do adults. Society is out of control.

15. What happens at the Blacks house?

On the way to Faber's house, while he is on the run, Montag sneaks up

to the Black's house, and plants some books in it. Black is a fireman,
and earlier in the book, Montag and Faber came up with a plan to plant
 books in firemen's homes, so that they will be framed and burned.
Their hope was to slowly annihilate any chance of any house getting
burned again; if they burn the source of the burning, then hopefully
they can get a foothold and start books circulating again. So, even
though Montag is on the run, he decides to at least start the plan that
he had come up with, and "he hid the books in the kitchen and moved
from the house," heading on to Faber's house. In the end, it doesn't
really matter, since the entire city gets bombed, but it is significant
that Montag was willing to frame a man of his trade in order to give
books a fighting chance. He has changed quite a bit from the man who
loved burning that we saw at the beginning of the novel.

16. Synecdoche is a literary device in which a part of something is

used to refer to the whole. Explain what old Harvard degrees stands
for in the following sentence, which Faber says to Montag. Ive heard
there are still hobo camps all across the country, here and there;
walking camps they call them and if you keep walking far enough and
keep an eye peeled, they say theres lots of old Harvard degrees on the
tracks between here and Los Angeles.

In this context, old Harvard degrees is basically just stating that the
people in these hobo camps are scholarly, intelligent people who are
much like Faber. They know of the past times before the wars, crime,
and censorship and they too have a love for literature and gaining
knowledge through experience and thought.

17. When Montag is on the run, what does he notice about the
country? What significance do a glass of milk, an apple, and a pear
have to him?

He notices that there is so much silence. The significance is that when

he was a child he visited an old barn and would lay above in the loft of
the barn on stacks of hay and stair up at the stars. This was a time
before the parlor walls, before technology took over. He would see the
girl in the window of the lit barn house and watch her brush her hair.
She was as gorgeous and beautiful as a girl he once knew by the name
of Clarisse. In the morning, he would not need sleep for this leisure
time with him staring up at the warm, night sky had given him all he
needed. When he walked down the steps, at the bottom was a glass of
milk, apples, and pears. This is all he wanted now. He wanted this
 leisure time once more, to just lay in the barn and watch the sky. All he
wanted was for the world to accept him and give him this time he so
desperately needed to think all the thoughts that needed to be
thought. He wanted a simple glass of milk, an apple, and a pear once
more.

18. How does Granger help Montag get the Mechanical Hound off his
trail?

To help mask his scent from the Mechanical Hound, Granger gives Montag
a bitter drink that will change his chemical balance.

19. What does Montag have to offer to the group of intellectuals?

Nothing, He has no books, and in the beginning no recollection what

his books said. He comes to them with just a hope to remember and be
able to share his knowledge.

20. Why are Granger and his group referred to as pieces of literature
instead of by their names? What is this literary device called, and how
does it function here?

They are referred to as pieces of literature because each of them have

pieces of books here and there that they have memorized and
dedicated years to keep inside their heads permanently. The literary
device used is allusion. The definition of an allusion is a brief and
indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical,
cultural, literary or political significance. It functions here because
when the people call each other by the name of the book they have
memorized, they are alluding to that specific title. Every time they call
each other by the title of these books or authors, they are alluding to a
historical, cultural, literary significance (the Bible, Gullivers Travels,
Platos Republic, Charles Darwin etc.)

21. Montag cries out, Look!. The next sentence in the narrative is
as follows: And the war began and ended in that instant What is
meant by this?

The war hangs over Montag's head throughout the novel; he is not sure
who is at war with who, and is confused and irritated that no one else
seems concerned. As the novel progresses, snatches of reporting from
 radios show how the war is moving forward, and as Montag flees the
city, the war is officially declared. It is interesting that the war has a
long buildup, but the technology of the time allows the war to be
extremely fast: And the war began and ended in that instant.
Later, the men around Montag could not say if they had really
seen anything. Perhaps the merest flourish of light and motion in
the sky.
Montag and the other men at the train tracks are astonished by
the power of the jets and bombs; the city is utterly destroyed. For
the book hobos, the war is an inevitable part of the societal
degeneration that resulted from censorship and collectivism; for
Montag, the war is the end of his previous life and the beginning
of a new life. He knows now that his unique knowledge, his value
as an individual, is important to rebuilding society; all the
mindless drones in the city succumbed to the war because they
couldn't think for themselves, but Montag has escaped precisely
because he rejected those ideals.

22. According to Granger, how is humankind different from the

phoenix? How are they alike?

The Phoenix is a symbol of rebirth, such as rising out of the ashes of a cast
off life, to live again, renewed, reborn. It is a symbol for the future of the
resistance or the book people that Montag joins at the end of the story. It
foreshadows a rebirth of the society, providing a sense of hope that the
current society, with its fascination for burning books and eliminating
diversity of opinion, will be cleansed through the use of fire. "By ending the
book in a fire storm of bombs, there is the sense that this old society of
conformity will die and a new one will be born out of the ashes, like the
mythical phoenix to which Granger refers. "A time to break down, and a time
to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak," Montag thinks
as the book people move up the river at the end of the story." And, as the
Phoenix rises out of the ashes, symbolically representing a new life, cleansed
of the past, to live once more, so too is the hope of the rebels who have
secretly memorized books to keep them alive. The Phoenix is a symbol of
change and transformation and this is particularly true for Guy Montag, who
experiences his own transformation in the book. So through Guy Montag,
and the rebels, the Phoenix represents the cycles in nature, meaning that out
of the current society, the events of the moment, a new cycle of life will
emerge, that is history, all societies go through cycles. The difference is that
we know what we have done wrong ( the damn silly things wed done), and
the phoenix never learned what he was doing wrong, he just kept burning
himself up.
 23. What quoted material does Montag remember and save for later,
when they arrive in the city?
Most obviously, it is the book that Montag has partially memorized, and
that he will, in their future society, teach to other people. Part of
Granger's plan, and those that return to the city to rebuild, is to use
books that they have all memorized, so that they can share the
wisdom from them, and pass that wisdom on to future generations.
Montag says that he has a little bit of Ecclesiastes in his head, so he
will be in charge of guarding it safely so that it isn't lost forever. More
symbolically, in the actual book of Ecclesiastes in the bible, a lot of its
main theme focuses on how worldy pleasures, vanity, material goods,
and worldly pursuits are worthless, meaningless, and empty. Pursuing
the world, filling your life with pursuits of money and pleasure will
leave you without anything of real import in the end. That theme
represents the society that Montag lived in, and how it is empty and
meaningless, despite its full and busy schedule as it pursues worldy
pleasures. That is a significant book in the bible to memorize, because
it contains important lessons on how to rebuild a society that is based
on real, meaningful values instead of emptiness.

Ending of Fahrenheit 451: And on either side of the river was there a tree of
life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month;
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Yes, thought
Montag, that's the one I'll save for noon. For noon...When we reach the city.