F451 Part III: BURNING BRIGHT

0.0(0)
studied byStudied by 0 people
full-widthCall with Kai
GameKnowt Play
learnLearn
examPractice Test
spaced repetitionSpaced Repetition
heart puzzleMatch
flashcardsFlashcards
Card Sorting

1/82

flashcard set

Earn XP

Description and Tags

DYRT Quiz

Study Analytics
Name
Mastery
Learn
Test
Matching
Spaced

No study sessions yet.

83 Terms

1
New cards

How did Montag and Beatty react to Montag’s house being burned?

Montag and Beatty stared, one with dry satisfaction, the other with disbelief, at the house before them, this main ring in which torches would be juggled and fire eaten.

2
New cards

What hint does Beatty say he sent to Montag of him being suspicious?

"Well," said Beatty, "now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?"

3
New cards

What does Mildred bring with her when she runs out of the house?

The front door opened; Mildred came down the steps, running, one suitcase held with a dream-like clenching rigidity in her fist, as a beetle-taxi hissed to the curb.

4
New cards

What does Montag suspect Mildred of doing?

"Mildred, you didn't put in the alarm!"

5
New cards

What does Mildred say when she leaves the house before she leaves in the beetle-taxi?

"Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now ...."

6
New cards

What happens to the house? Who is destroying it?

There was a crash like the falling parts of a dream fashioned out of warped glass, mirrors, and crystal prisms. Montag drifted about as if still another incomprehensible storm had turned him, to see Stoneman and Black wielding axes, shattering windowpanes to provide cross-ventilation.

7
New cards

What does Beatty say about what makes fire so lovely? What is the real beauty of it?

"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...Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it. Now, Montag, you're a burden. And fire will lift you off my shoulders, clean, quick, sure; nothing to rot later. Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical."

8
New cards

Instead of using kerosene, Beatty wants Montag to use what to burn down his house?

Not with kerosene and a match, but piecework, with a flamethrower.

9
New cards

How does Montag figure the books got back in the house?

Mildred, of course. She must have watched him hide the books in the garden and brought them back in.

10
New cards

What reason does Montag say he can’t run and get away?

"No!" cried Montag helplessly. "The Hound! Because of the Hound!"

11
New cards

What does Beatty say to Montag as he is finishing burning the house?

"When you're quite finished," said Beatty behind him. "You're under arrest."

12
New cards

Who called in the alarm?

"Was it my wife turned in the alarm?"

Beatty nodded. "But her friends turned in an alarm earlier, that I let ride.”

13
New cards

What happened to the "green bullet" radio that Faber gave to Montag?

Beatty struck him a blow on the head that sent him reeling back. The green bullet in which Faber's voice whispered and cried, fell to the sidewalk. Beatty snatched it up, grinning.

14
New cards

What does Beatty say he will do with the radio?

“We'll trace this and drop it on your friend."

15
New cards

What did Montag do to Beatty?

He twitched the safety catch on the flame-thrower,..And then he was a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gibbering mannikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on him…Beatty flopped over and over and over, and at last twisted in on himself like a charred wax doll and lay silent.

16
New cards

What was the reaction of the other two firemen?

The other two firemen did not move…They turned, their faces like blanched meat, streaming sweat; he beat their heads, knocking off their helmets and bringing them down on themselves. They fell and lay without moving.

17
New cards

What happens between Montag and the Hound?

It made a single last leap into the air, coming down at Montag from a good three feet over his head, its spidered legs reaching, the procaine needle snapping out its single angry tooth. Montag caught it with a bloom of fire, a single wondrous blossom that curled in petals of yellow and blue and orange about the metal dog, clad it in a new covering as it slammed into Montag and threw him ten feet back against the bole of a tree, taking the flame-gun with him. He felt it scrabble and seize his leg and stab the [procaine] needle in for a moment before the fire snapped the Hound up in the air, burst its metal bones at the joints, and blew out its interior in the single flushing of red colour like a skyrocket fastened to the street.

The Mechanical Hound, a robotic dog used by the firemen, attacks Montag, injecting a paralyzing anesthetic into his leg. Montag then manages to destroy the Hound with his flamethrower.

18
New cards

What injuries does Montag sustain?

“He felt it scrabble and seize his leg and stab the [procaine] needle in for a moment”

“his knee slammed by the fender of a car hurtling by at ninety miles an hour”

“He stood and he had only one leg. The other was like a chunk of burnt pinelog he was carrying along as a penance for some obscure sin. When he put his weight on it, a shower of silver needles gushed up the length of the calf and went off in the knee.”

“A shotgun blast went off in his leg every time he put it down”

19
New cards

What does Montag find near his garden fence?

He found a few books where he had left them, near the garden fence. Mildred, God bless her, had missed a few. Four books still lay hidden where he had put them.

20
New cards

What does Montag realize Beatty wanted to do?

Beatty wanted to die.

In the middle of the crying Montag knew it for the truth. Beatty had wanted to die. He had just stood there, not really trying to save himself, just stood there, joking, needling, thought Montag, and the thought was enough to stifle his sobbing and let him pause for air. How strange, strange, to want to die so much that you let a man walk around armed and then instead of shutting up and staying alive, you go on yelling at people and making fun of them until you get them mad, and then ....

21
New cards

Why does Montag have a hard time getting up?

The pains were spikes driven in the kneecap and then only darning needles and then only common, ordinary safety pins, and after he had dragged along fifty more hops and jumps, filling his hand with slivers from the board fence, the prickling was like someone blowing a spray of scalding water on that leg. —painful

22
New cards

What is Montag’s reaction to the green bullet radio burning?

He had burnt Faber, too. He felt so suddenly shocked by this that he felt Faber was really dead, baked like a roach in that small green capsule shoved and lost in the pocket of a man who was now nothing but a frame skeleton strung with asphalt tendons.

23
New cards

What does Montag hear from the Seashell in his pocket?

"Police Alert. Wanted: Fugitive in city. Has committed murder and crimes

against the State. Name: Guy Montag. Occupation: Fireman. Last seen . . ."

24
New cards

Where does Montag realize he is running?

There was nowhere to go, no friend to turn to, really. Except

Faber. And then he realized that he was indeed, running toward Faber's

house, instinctively. But Faber couldn't hide him; it would be suicide even

to try. But he knew that he would go to see Faber anyway, for a few short

minutes. Faber's would be the place where he might refuel his fast draining

belief in his own ability to survive. He just wanted to know that there was a

man like Faber in the world. He wanted to see the man alive and not burned

back there like a body shelled in another body. And some of the money

must be left with Faber, of course, to be spent after Montag ran on his way.

25
New cards

How many police helicopters were searching for Montag?

Two dozen of them flurried, wavering, indecisive, three miles off, like butterflies puzzled by autumn, and then they were plummeting down to land, one by one, here, there, softly kneading the streets where, turned back to beetles, they shrieked along the boulevards or, as suddenly, leapt back into the sir, continuing their search.

26
New cards

How fast was the beetle that almost ran over Montag going?

It was up to 120 m.p.h. It was up to 130 at least.

27
New cards

How close was the beetle to hitting Montag?

Across the extreme tip of his middle finger, he saw now as he lifted that hand, a faint sixteenth of an inch of black tread where tyre had touched in passing.

28
New cards

Who was driving the beetle? Why did they drive it so recklessly?

A carful of children, all ages, God knew, from twelve to sixteen, 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 Mr. Montag, simply a, number of children out for a long night of roaring five or six hundred miles in a few moonlit hours, their faces icy with wind, and coming home or not coming at dawn, alive or not alive, that made the adventure.

29
New cards

What does Montag do to the Black family?

He hid the books in the kitchen and moved from the house again to the alley and looked back and the house was still dark and quiet, sleeping. On his way across town…he phoned the alarm at a lonely phone booth outside a store that was closed for the night. Then he stood in the cold night air, waiting and at a distance he heard the fire sirens start up and run, and the Salamanders coming, coming to bum Mr. Black's house while he was away at work, to make his wife stand shivering in the morning air while the roof let go and dropped in upon the fire. —I planted a book in a fireman's house on the way, and calls an alarm

30
New cards

How long does it take for all of this to occur?

g. How many times can a man go down and still be alive? I can't breathe. There's Beatty dead, and he was my friend once, and there's Millie gone, I thought she was my wife, but now I don't know. And the house all burnt. And my job gone and myself on the run, and I planted a book in a fireman's house on the way. Good Christ, the things I've done in a single week! "

31
New cards

How does Faber feel?

"I feel alive for the first time in years," said Faber. "I feel I'm doing what I should have done a lifetime ago. For a little while I'm not afraid. Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last. Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you. I suppose I'll have to do even more violent things, exposing myself so I won't fall down on the job and turn scared again. What are your plans?"

32
New cards

What does Faber say there are a lot of along the railroad tracks?

"You'd better head for the river if you can, follow along it, and if you can hit the old railroad lines going out into the country, follow them. Even though practically everything's airborne these days and most of the tracks are abandoned, the rails are still there, rusting. I've 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 there's lots of old Harvard degrees on the tracks between here and Los Angeles.”

33
New cards

Where does Faber say he is going? Why is he going there?

You might hole up with them for a time and get in touch with me in St. Louis, I'm leaving on the five a.m. bus this morning, to see a retired printer there, I'm getting out into the open myself, at last.

34
New cards

What does Faber show Montag?

He took Montag quickly into the bedroom and lifted a picture frame aside, revealing a television screen the size of a postal card. "I always wanted something very small, something I could talk to, something I could blot out with the palm of my hand, if necessary, nothing that could shout me down, nothing monstrous big. So, you see."

35
New cards

What has been brought from a different district to track down Montag?

A new Mechanical Hound has been brought from another district.. ."

Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake.

". . . nose so sensitive the Mechanical Hound can remember and identify ten thousand odour-indexes on ten thousand men without re-setting! "

36
New cards

How does Montag feel about the chase on the TV?

He watched the scene, fascinated, not wanting to move. It seemed so remote and no part of him; it was a play apart and separate, wondrous to watch, not without its strange pleasure…see himself dramatized, described, made over, standing there… a drama to be watched objectively, knowing that in other parlours he was large as life, in full colour, dimensionally perfect!..would see himself, an instant before oblivion, being punctured for the benefit of how many civilian parlour-sitters who had been wakened from sleep a few minutes ago by the frantic sirening of their living-room walls to come watch the big game, the hunt, the one-man carnival.

37
New cards

Why does Montag tell Faber to burn the bedspread and the chair?

When I leave, burn the spread of this bed, that I touched. Burn the chair in the living room, in your wall incinerator. Wipe down the furniture with alcohol, wipe the door-knobs. Burn the throwrug in the parlour. Turn the air-conditioning on full in all the rooms and spray with moth-spray if you have it. Then, turn on your lawn sprinklers as high as they'll go and hose off the sidewalks. With any luck at all, we can kill the trail in here, anyway..'

Montag's scent is on them

38
New cards

Why doesn't Faber give Montag another "green bullet"?

You see, I never thought I would use it…So I haven't another green bullet, the right kind, to put in your head.

39
New cards

What does Faber tell Montag to get?

A suitcase, get it, fill it with your dirtiest clothes, an old suit, the dirtier the better, a shirt, some old sneakers and socks . . . ."

40
New cards

What does Faber do to the valise?

They sealed the cardboard valise with clear tape. "To keep the ancient odour of Mr. Faber in, of course,"…Montag doused the exterior of the valise with whisky. "I don't want that Hound picking up two odours at once.

41
New cards

What does Montag see on his way to the river?

He stopped for breath, on his way to the river, to peer through dimly lit windows of wakened houses, and saw the silhouettes of people inside watching their parlour walls and there on the walls the Mechanical Hound, a breath of neon vapour, spidered along, here and gone, here and gone! Now at Elm Terrace, Lincoln, Oak, Park, and up the alley toward Faber's house.

42
New cards

What do the police suggest everyone do at the same time?

"Police suggest entire population in the Elm Terrace area do as follows: Everyone in every house in every street open a front or rear door or look from the windows. The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready! "

43
New cards

What did Montag do when he got to the river?

He touched it, just to be sure it was real. He waded in and stripped in darkness to the skin, splashed his body, arms, legs, and head with raw liquor; drank it and snuffed some up his nose. Then he dressed in Faber's old clothes and shoes. He tossed his own clothing into the river and watched it swept away. Then, holding the suitcase, he walked out in the river until there was no bottom and he was swept away in the dark. —Took his clothes off, covered himself in liquor, and put Faber's old clothes on

44
New cards

How does Montag feel after he escapes in the river?

Now there was only the cold river and Montag floating in a sudden peacefulness, away from the city and the lights and the chase, away from everything. He felt as if he had left a stage behind and many actors. He felt as if he had left the great seance and all the murmuring ghosts. He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.

45
New cards

What does Montag think of the sun and burning?

And what lights the sun? Its own fire. And the sun goes on, day after day, burning and burning. The sun and time…The sun and every clock on the earth. It all came together and became a single thing in his mind. After a long time of floating on the land and a short time of floating in the river he knew why he must never burn again in his life. The sun burned every day. It burned Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and 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 burned! One of them had to stop burning. The sun wouldn't, certainly.

46
New cards

What does Montag think of when he smells the hay?

He remembered a farm he had visited when he was very young, one of the rare times he had discovered that somewhere behind the seven veils of unreality, beyond the walls of parlours and beyond the tin moat of the city, cows chewed grass and pigs sat in warm ponds at noon and dogs barked after white sheep on a hill. Now, the dry smell of hay, the motion of the waters, made him think of sleeping in fresh hay in a lonely barn away from the loud highways, behind a quiet farmhouse, and under an ancient windmill that whirred like the sound of the passing years overhead.

47
New cards

Who does the woman in the farmhouse remind Montag of?

It would be hard to see her, but her face would be like the face of the girl so long ago in his past now, so very long ago, the girl who had known the weather and never been burned by the fire-flies, the girl who had known what dandelions meant rubbed off on your chin. — Clarisse

48
New cards

What is the symbolism of the milk, apples, and pears?

And there at the bottom of the hayloft stair, waiting for him, would be the

incredible thing. He would step carefully down, in the pink light of early

morning, so fully aware of the world that he would be afraid, and stand over

the small miracle and at last bend to touch it.

A cool glass of fresh milk, and a few apples and pears laid at the foot of the

steps.

This was all he wanted now. Some sign that the immense world would

accept him and give him the long time needed to think all the things that

must be thought.

49
New cards

What childhood memories does Montag have of water?

This dark land rising was like that day in his childhood, swimming, when from nowhere the largest wave in the history of remembering slammed him down in salt mud and green darkness, water burning mouth and nose, retching his stomach, screaming!

50
New cards

What did Montag think was looking at him? What was actually looking at him?

Out of the black wall before him, a whisper. A shape. In the shape, two eyes. The night looking at him. The forest, seeing him. The Hound!

A deer

51
New cards

What is Montag filled with?

There must have been a billion leaves on the land; he waded in them, a dry river smelling of hot cloves and warm dust…

He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him. There would always be more than enough.

52
New cards

What did Montag hit with his foot?

His foot hit something that rang dully. He moved his hand on the ground, a yard this way, a yard that. The railroad track.

53
New cards

What was the single fact that Montag couldn't prove?

And he was surprised to learn how certain he suddenly was of a single fact he could not prove.

Once, long ago, Clarisse had walked here, where he was walking now.

54
New cards

How is the fire at the railroad strange to Montag?

That small motion, the white and red colour, a strange fire because it meant a different thing to him. It was not burning; it was warming!

…silence gathered all about that fire and the silence was in the men's faces, and time was there, time enough to sit by this rusting track under the trees, and look at the world and turn it over with the eyes, as if it were held to the centre of the bonfire

It was not only the fire that was different. It was the silence. Montag moved toward this special silence that was concerned with all of the world.

55
New cards

What do the men around the fire say to Montag?

"All right, you can come out now!”…"It's all right," the voice said. "You're welcome here."

"Sit down," said the man who seemed to be the leader of the small group. "Have some coffee?"

56
New cards

What do the men look like?

Montag walked slowly toward the fire and the five old men sitting there dressed in dark blue denim pants and jackets and dark blue suits. The faces around him were bearded, but the beards were clean, neat, and their hands were clean. They had stood up as if to welcome a guest, and now they sat down again.

57
New cards

What is the name of the man Montag is talking to?

Granger

58
New cards

What is the colorless fluid in the small bottle supposed to do?

It'll change the chemical index of your perspiration. Half an hour from now you'll smell like two other people. With the Hound after you, the best thing is Bottoms up."

59
New cards

Why is the chase still going on if they have lost Montag?

"They're faking. You threw them off at the river. They can't admit it. They know they can hold their audience only so long. The show's got to have a snap ending, quick! If they started searching the whole damn river it might take all night. So they're sniffing for a scape-goat to end things with a bang. Watch. They'll catch Montag in the next five minutes! "

60
New cards

What does Montag see in the portable viewer?

Anyway, the police have had him charted for months, years. Never know when that sort of information might be handy. And today, it turns out, it's very usable indeed. It saves face…On the screen, a man turned a corner. The Mechanical Hound rushed forward into the viewer, suddenly…The innocent man stood bewildered, a cigarette burning in his hand. He stared at the Hound, not knowing what it was.

The Hound attacks somebody else

61
New cards

How was it possible that not even Montag's friends would recognize that the man they caught wasn't him?

They didn't show the man's face in focus. Did you notice? Even your best friends couldn't tell if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the imagination take over.

62
New cards

Who are the men, and what have they done?

Fred Clement, former occupant of the Thomas Hardy chair at Cambridge in the years before it became an Atomic Engineering School.

Dr. Simmons from U.C.L.A., a specialist in Ortega y Gasset;

Professor West here did quite a bit for ethics, an ancient study now, for Columbia University quite some years ago.

Reverend Padover here gave a few lectures thirty years ago and lost his flock between one Sunday and the next for his views.

Myself: I wrote a book called The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and Society, and here I am!

63
New cards

Where is Montag keeping the Book of Ecclesiastes?

"The Book of Ecclesiastes would be fine. Where was it?"

"Here," Montag touched his head.

64
New cards

Who is a Book of Ecclesiastes before Montag?

Better than all right; perfect!" Granger turned to the Reverend. "Do we have a Book of Ecclesiastes?"

"One. A man named Harris of Youngstown."

"Montag." Granger took Montag's shoulder firmly.

"Walk carefully. Guard your health. If anything should happen to Harris, you are the Book of Ecclesiastes. See how important you've become in the last minute!"

65
New cards

How can the group of men remember their books?

All of us have photographic memories, but spend a lifetime learning how to block off the things that are really in there. Simmons here has worked on it for twenty years and now we've got the method down to where we can recall anything that's been read once.

66
New cards

How does the group keep their knowledge? What are they trying to do?

"We're book-burners, too. We read the books and burnt them, afraid they'd be found. Micro-filming didn't pay off; we were always travelling, we didn't want to bury the film and come back later. Always the chance of discovery. Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it.

All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need, intact and safe.

Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end…When the war's over, perhaps we can be of some use in the world…We'll pass the books on to our children, by word of mouth, and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people. A lot will be lost that way, of course.

Wait for the war to end so they can spread their knowledge

And when the war's over, some day, some year, the books can be written again, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we'll set it up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again.

67
New cards

How many people are in the organization?

"Thousands on the roads, the abandoned railtracks, tonight, bums on the outside, libraries inside.

68
New cards

Why does the group trust Montag?

"The look of you's enough. You haven't seen yourself in a mirror lately. Beyond that, the city has never cared so much about us to bother with an elaborate chase like this to find us. A few crackpots with verses in their heads can't touch them, and they know it and we know it; everyone knows it.

69
New cards

What does Montag expect the men to look like?

Montag tried to see the men's faces, the old faces he remembered from the firelight, lined and tired. He was looking for a brightness, a resolve, a triumph over tomorrow that hardly seemed to be there.

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…no different from any others who had run a long race, searched a long search, seen good things destroyed, and now, very late, were gathering to wait for the end of the party and the blowing out of the lamps.

They weren't at all certain that the things they carried in their heads might make every future dawn glow with a purer light, they were sure of nothing save that the books were on file behind their quiet eyes, the books were waiting, with their pages uncut, for the customers who might come by in later years, some with clean and some with dirty fingers.

Montag squinted from one face to another as they walked.

"Don't judge a book by its cover," someone said.

70
New cards

How does Montag feel about Mildred being in the city?

"It's strange, I don't miss her, it's strange I don't feel much of anything," said Montag.

"Even if she dies, I realized a moment ago, I don't think I'll feel sad. It isn't right.

Something must be wrong with me."

71
New cards

What does Granger tell Montag about his grandfather’s legacy?

"When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor… And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he didHe shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on."

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. …Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.

72
New cards

What does Granger tell Montag about his grandfather’s ideology?

"My grandfather ran off the V-2 rocket film a dozen times and then hoped that some day our cities would open up and let the green and the land and the wilderness in more, to remind people that we're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, some day it will come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be. You see?"

'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds…Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that,' he said, 'shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.'"

73
New cards

What does Montag see is happening in the city?

Perhaps the bombs were there, and the jets, ten miles, five miles, one mile up, for the merest instant, like grain thrown over the heavens by a great sowing hand, and the bombs drifting with dreadful swiftness, yet sudden slowness, down upon the morning city they had left behind. The bombardment was to all intents and purposes finished, once the jets had sighted their target, alerted their bombardiers at five thousand miles an hour; as quick as the whisper of a scythe the war was finished. Once the bomb-release was yanked it was over.

Jets headed to the city and bombs

74
New cards

What does Montag yell when the city is being bombed?

Run!" he cried to Faber. To Clarisse, "Run!" To Mildred, "Get out, get out of there! " But Clarisse, he remembered, was dead. And Faber was out; there in the deep valleys of the country somewhere the five a.m. bus was on its way from one desolation to another. And Mildred . . . Get out, run!

75
New cards

What does Montag see Mildred in the city?

He saw her in her hotel room somewhere now in the halfsecond remaining with the bombs a yard, a foot, an inch from her building. He saw her leaning toward the great shimmering walls of colour and motion where the family talked and talked and talked to her, where the family prattled and chatted and said her name and smiled at her and said nothing of the bomb that was an inch, now a half-inch, now a quarter-inch from the top of the hotel. Leaning into the wall as if all of the hunger of looking would find the secret of her sleepless unease there. Mildred, leaning anxiously, nervously, as if to plunge, drop, fall into that swarming immensity of colour to drown in its bright happiness.

Montag, falling flat, going down, saw or felt, or imagined he saw or felt the walls go dark in Millie's face, heard her screaming, because in the millionth part of time left, she saw her own face reflected there, in a mirror instead of a crystal ball, and it was such a wildly empty face, all by itself in the room, touching nothing, starved and eating of itself, that at last she recognized it as her own and looked quickly up at the ceiling as it and the entire structure of the hotel blasted down upon her, carrying her with a million pounds of brick, metal, plaster, and wood, to meet other people in the hives below, all on their quick way down to the cellar where the explosion rid itself of them in its own unreasonable way.

76
New cards

Where does Montag remember he and Millie met?

I remember. Montag clung to the earth. I remember. Chicago. Chicago, a long time ago. Millie and I. That's where we met! I remember now.

77
New cards

What happens after Montag witnesses the city being bombed?

He and the others survive the shockwave

The concussion knocked the air across and down the river, turned the men over like dominoes in a line, blew the water in lifting sprays, and blew the dust and made the trees above them mourn with a great wind passing away south.

78
New cards

What other book does Montag realize he has remembered?

Montag, lying there, eyes gritted shut with dust, a fine wet cement of dust in his now shut mouth, gasping and crying, now thought again, I remember, I remember, I remember something else. What is it? Yes, yes, part of the Ecclesiastes and Revelation. Part of that book, part of it, quick now, quick, before it gets away, before the shock wears off, before the wind dies. Book of Ecclesiastes. Here. He said it over to himself silently, lying flat to the trembling earth, he said the words of it many times and they were perfect without trying and there was no Denham's Dentifrice anywhere, it was just the Preacher by himself, standing there in his mind, looking at him ....

79
New cards

What does Montag promise after the shockwave?

We'll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me.

Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.

80
New cards

What does Granger compare man to?

"There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man.

But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation."

81
New cards

What kind of factory does Granger say they are going to build?

Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them.

82
New cards

What is Montag’s quote from the Ecclesiastes 3 (Bible) and what does it symbolize for him?

To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak.

-

This passage from Ecclesiastes emphasizes that life is made up of different seasons, each with its own purpose. For Montag, who has just witnessed the destruction of his old world, the quote symbolizes the end of one era and the hopeful beginning of another. The “time to break down” refers to the collapse of the oppressive, book-burning society, while the “time to build up” points to the opportunity for Montag and the other survivors to rebuild a better world.

83
New cards

What is Montag’s quote from the Book of Revelation (22:2) and what does it symbolize for him?

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.

-

Montag recalls this passage at the end of Fahrenheit 451 after the city has been destroyed by war. The quote from Revelation describes a vision of the New Jerusalem, a place of restoration and peace after an apocalypse. For Montag, this passage symbolizes hope for humanity’s renewal. Just as the tree of life’s leaves are “for the healing of the nations,” Montag and his companions, who have preserved knowledge from books, represent the possibility of healing and rebuilding their broken society