Part Three, Reading 1 · Burning Bright — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

Beatty says the beauty of fire is that it “destroys responsibility and consequences.” When Montag turns the flamethrower on Beatty, is he breaking free of the firemen's way or still living by it?

The tension Beatty praises fire because “it destroys responsibility and consequences”, and at his own house Montag feels just that, “Fire was best for everything!”; yet the act of that night with the heaviest consequence, Beatty's death, is one Montag can never fully account for, unsure “whether the hands or Beatty’s reaction to the hands” pushed him.

Today's focus

How the old pleasure of the flamethrower returns at Montag’s own house, and where it leads once Beatty finds the green bullet.

The shape at a glance

Lights come on and doors open all down the street as the neighbours come out to watch, as if a circus were setting up. The house the firemen have come to burn is Montag’s own. Beatty says Montag flew too near the sun and burnt his wings, and asks whether sending the Hound around his place was not hint enough. Montag’s head turns to the dark house next door, and Beatty mocks Clarisse, her flowers, butterflies and sunsets, all of it in her file. Montag says she let people alone; Beatty says people like her make others feel guilty. Mildred runs out with a suitcase, past Montag, and rides off in a taxi mumbling about her poor family, everything gone. Stoneman and Black smash the windows. Faber’s voice asks what is happening, and Montag says it is happening to him. Beatty mocks people who think nothing will ever happen to them: there are no consequences, he says, except that there are. He flicks his igniter and praises fire: its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences, and a burdensome problem goes into the furnace. Now Montag is the burden. Montag sees his books torn open on the floor; Mildred must have brought them back in from the garden. Beatty orders Montag to burn the house alone, with a flamethrower. Faber begs him to run; Montag cries that he cannot, because of the Hound. Montag fires at the books, then burns the bedroom, the furniture and the dishes, and as before it is good to burn: if there is no solution, there is no problem. A voice has to call him back to the books. In the parlour he fires at the three walls, holds his breath against the emptiness, and burns the room. Beatty arrests him. The house falls in at three-thirty in the morning, and the crowd goes back inside. Montag asks whether his wife turned in the alarm. Beatty says yes, and that her friends turned one in earlier, which he let ride; Montag would have been caught either way. Beatty mocks his poetry. Montag stands without moving, his mind far away, while Faber tells him to get out. Beatty strikes him, and the green bullet falls from his ear. Beatty hears Faber’s voice in it, switches it off, and says they will trace it to Montag’s friend. Montag twitches the safety catch. Beatty dares him with a line of Shakespeare and steps closer. Montag says only that they never burned right, and turns the flamethrower on Beatty, who dies horribly while Montag shuts his eyes and shouts. Montag makes the other two firemen turn around and knocks them out. The Mechanical Hound leaps; Montag burns it, but it reaches him anyway and stabs its needle into his leg. He lies by a tree, afraid he cannot stand, the leg going numb.

A way in

Before reading, ask the student what it would be like to have the neighbours come out to watch your own house burn. Read aloud to “What good did she ever do with all that?” and stop: ask why Beatty knows so much about the girl next door. Read on to the end of Beatty’s speech about fire, “Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical.”, and stop again: ask what Beatty thinks fire is for. Read the burning of the house slowly, to “You’re under arrest.”, and ask how Montag feels while he burns. Read on until Beatty pockets the green bullet and Montag cries out no, and stop: ask what Montag can do now. Then read to the end without stopping, and leave a silence before anyone speaks. Beatty’s death is told plainly and horribly; do not linger on it, and do not let it become a victory. Do not say Beatty wanted to die; nothing in this reading says why he steps closer. Do not say where Mildred goes, what she feels for Montag, whether Faber is found, or what the Hound’s needle will do. Do not read the burning of the house as pure rebellion: the page says it was good to burn, “as before”.

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells the reading back in three parts. First the street: the neighbours coming out, Beatty’s words about the sun and the Hound, the dark house next door and Clarisse’s file, Mildred running to the taxi with her suitcase, the smashed windows, Faber’s voice, and Beatty’s talk of consequences and of fire. Then the burning: the books on the floor, the order to do it alone with a flamethrower, the first blast, the bedroom, the voice calling him back to the books, the parlour, and the arrest. Last, the lawn: the house falling, the question about the alarm, Beatty’s mockery, the green bullet, “We never burned right…”, Beatty’s death, the two firemen, and the Hound. Ask for three or four sentences for each part, in order.

Imitate the author After copying, the student writes five sentences built like the first passage, about something a person praises too much: a plain claim; a sentence whose two halves are joined by only a comma and “then”, like “too burdensome, then into the furnace with it”; a sentence that names the listener between commas, like “Now, Montag,”; a sentence with three single words in a row and then a semicolon; and a line of three words with no verb. Then three sentences built like the second passage, about doing something that feels good and should not: a sentence that runs on through commas and ends with three quick verbs in a row, like “snatch, rend, rip in half”; a sentence that turns on a comma; and a short exclamation.

Debate Take sides on the last written question. First make two lists together. Reasons Montag breaks free: he fires to protect Faber, not to put a problem away; he shuts his eyes and shouts and tries to cover his ears; he spares the other two firemen; he can never decide what gave him “the final push”, so the act stays his to answer for. Reasons he is still living by the firemen’s way: not long before, he felt “Fire was best for everything!”; Beatty was the most burdensome problem of the night, and Montag put him into the fire; he used the very tool Beatty handed him. One side argues each, with a reason and a line from the reading, then they switch. No side may call Beatty’s death a victory or a fit punishment, say Beatty wanted to die, or say what happens to Faber or to Montag’s leg.

Purpose Close on where the reading stops: “A numbness in a numbness hollowed into a numbness…” Set it beside the beginning, where Montag’s face “was entirely numb and featureless” as the street came out to watch. Ask what has changed between the first numbness and the last, and what has not. Then ask why Bradbury ends the reading here, with Montag lying still, and not with him getting up. Do not say whether he gets up, or where he goes.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud together from “I want you to do this job all by your lonesome” to “You’re under arrest.” Talk through the second discussion question (what Montag is trying to burn when a voice shouts “The books, Montag!”). Then answer the last written question aloud, starting from what Beatty says fire is for and what Montag feels in the bedroom.

On level Talk through the four discussion questions in order, then have the student write answers to the three written questions in complete sentences: a claim, two pieces of evidence from different parts of the reading, and an answer to the strongest objection.

Harder Ask the student to write the last written question as an argument: a claim, the strongest reason against it, and an answer to that reason. Then give them a puzzle from the reading itself. Bradbury turns fire into a flower twice: in the parlour, “one huge bright yellow flower of burning”, and on the lawn, where the Hound is wrapped in “a single wondrous blossom”. Clarisse’s house is set in “its bright borders of flowers”, and Beatty mocked her for them. Ask what those two flowers do to the reader’s sense of Montag’s fire, using only this reading. The answer must not say what happens to Montag next.

Discussion

1. Beatty asks what good Clarisse ever did, and Montag says she “didn’t do anything to anyone.” What kind of good is that?Moral reasoning

What it asks It asks the student to weigh Montag’s defence of the girl next door. Montag’s head turns “like a stone carving” to her dark house, “set in its bright borders of flowers.” Beatty snorts at her “Flowers, butterflies, leaves, sunsets” and says, “It’s all in her file.” Then he asks, “What good did she ever do with all that?” Montag answers, “She saw everything. She didn’t do anything to anyone. She just let them alone.” Beatty will not have it: “Alone, hell! She chewed around you, didn’t she?” He calls her one of those “do-gooders” whose “one talent” is “making others feel guilty.” The student decides whether doing nothing to anyone is a kind of good, and if so, what kind. It takes up one part of the last written question: minutes later Beatty praises fire for taking away just the kind of weight he says Clarisse put on people. Do not say what became of Clarisse; this reading does not tell.

A strong answer A strong response might say it is a real good: she “saw everything” and “just let them alone,” while tonight men with axes are shattering the windows of Montag’s house. Another might say Montag’s answer misses the question, because she did do something to someone: she “chewed around” Montag, and Beatty can see “the sick look” on his face. Her good, if it was one, was the guilt Beatty hates. A careful answer may notice that Beatty, minutes later, praises fire for lifting exactly that kind of weight, and may ask which of the two ways Montag is living by tonight.

2. After one blast at the books, Montag goes after the beds, the walls and the dishes, until a voice shouts, “The books, Montag!” What is he trying to burn?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to look at what Montag aims at. The first blast knocks the books against the wall. Then “He stepped into the bedroom and fired twice”, and he burns “the bedroom walls and the cosmetics chest because he wanted to change everything,” the chairs, the tables, the silverware and plastic dishes, “everything that showed that he had lived here in this empty house with a strange woman who would forget him tomorrow”. “And as before, it was good to burn,” and he could “put away the senseless problem.” Only then does a voice call him back: “The books, Montag!” The page does not say whose voice. The student decides what Montag is really burning. It takes up one part of the last written question: here Montag feels what Beatty praised in fire. Do not read the burning as pure rebellion; the page says it was good “as before,” the old pleasure. Do not say what Mildred feels for Montag; “a strange woman who would forget him” is Montag’s thought.

A strong answer A strong response might say he is burning his life with Mildred: he goes for “everything that showed that he had lived here in this empty house with a strange woman”, because “he wanted to change everything”. Another might say he is burning the problem itself, the way a fireman always has: “as before, it was good to burn,” and “If there was no solution, well then now there was no problem, either.” A careful answer may notice that the books, the reason the firemen came, are the one thing someone has to remind him of, and may ask what they still mean to him if he can forget them in his own fire.

3. As Mildred runs past, Montag shouts, “Mildred, you didn’t put in the alarm!” When the house is down, he asks Beatty if she did. What has changed for him in between?Character

What it asks It asks the student to set Montag’s shout beside his question. Mildred runs past him with her suitcase, “her face floured with powder,” and he calls after her, “Mildred, you didn’t put in the alarm!” She climbs into the taxi mumbling, “Poor family, poor family, oh everything gone, everything, everything gone now…” A little later Montag sees his books on the floor, “their covers torn off,” and thinks, “Mildred, of course. She must have watched him hide the books in the garden and brought them back in. Mildred. Mildred.” Then he burns the house. At three-thirty in the morning, “Montag started to speak twice and then finally managed to put his thought together”: “Was it my wife turned in the alarm?” Beatty nods. “But her friends turned in an alarm earlier, that I let ride. One way or the other, you’d have got it.” Then “Montag could not move.” The student decides what has changed for Montag between the shout and the question. A student may answer that nothing has, but that answer has to meet the page. It takes up one part of the last written question: Beatty answers as if no one is to blame, and Montag still asks for a name. Do not make Mildred only a villain; she leaves grieving for the “family” in her walls. Do not say where she goes or what she feels for Montag.

A strong answer A strong response might say he has worked it out: when he sees the books on the floor he thinks, “Mildred, of course,” and knows she “brought them back in,” so by three-thirty his shout has become a question he can hardly bring himself to ask. Another might say less has changed than it seems: he needs two tries to “put his thought together,” and after Beatty’s nod “Montag could not move,” as if he is hearing it for the first time. A careful answer may notice that Beatty’s reply, “One way or the other, you’d have got it,” makes the night no one’s doing, and may ask why Montag still wants a name. It may also notice that Mildred left mourning “Poor family,” the people in her walls.

4. Before he knocks the two firemen down, Montag orders them to “Turn around!” Why make them turn their backs?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to look at what Montag does in the seconds after Beatty’s death. The death is horrible, and Montag “shut his eyes, shouted, shouted, and fought to get his hands at his ears”. Then “The other two firemen did not move.” “Montag kept his sickness down long enough to aim the flame-thrower.” He orders, “Turn around!” They turn, “their faces like blanched meat, streaming sweat”, and he beats their heads until they lie still. He never uses the fire on them. The student decides why he has them turn their backs first. It takes up one part of the last written question: the flamethrower is in Montag’s hands, two more firemen stand in front of him, and the fire stops at Beatty. Do not dwell on how Beatty burned.

A strong answer A strong response might say he cannot bear to see their faces: a moment before, he “shut his eyes, shouted, shouted,” and now he keeps his sickness down only “long enough to aim.” Another might say turning them is how he spares them the fire: “The other two firemen did not move,” and with their backs to him he can bring them down by hand. A careful answer may notice that he sees their faces anyway as they turn, “like blanched meat,” and may ask what it means that fire, the firemen’s answer, is right there in his hands and he does not use it on them.

Critical thinking

1. Beatty asks Montag, “Didn’t I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?” Yet he says fire will get rid of Montag “clean, quick, sure.” Why give a hint at all?

What it asks It asks the student to test Beatty’s praise of fire against what Beatty himself has done. Among his first words tonight are, “Didn’t I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?” Minutes later, on the lawn, flicking his igniter, he says, “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.” After the fire he adds that Mildred’s friends “turned in an alarm earlier, that I let ride.” He makes Montag burn the house himself, “piecework, with a flamethrower”, and once it is down he asks, “Montag, you idiot, Montag, you damn fool; why did you really do it?” The student decides why a man who praises quick fire gave Montag a warning first. Write a claim with evidence, in complete sentences, and answer the strongest case for another reading. It takes up one part of the last written question: if even Beatty did not put this burden straight into the furnace, the student has to ask what the firemen’s way really is. Do not say Beatty wanted to die, or that he planned what came after. Do not say Faber is found.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue that Beatty was giving Montag a chance: he hinted with the Hound, let an earlier alarm “ride,” and even after the fire asks, “why did you really do it?”, as if Montag still matters to him. Another might argue the hint was part of a game: Beatty crows that he has “hit the bullseye,” studies “the sick look” on Montag’s face, and has him burn his own house “piecework, with a flamethrower.” A careful answer may notice that, either way, Beatty did not deal with this burden “clean, quick, sure,” and may ask whether Beatty lives by his own praise of fire.

2. Montag’s only answer to Beatty’s dare is “We never burned right…” What would it have meant to burn right?

What it asks It asks the student to make sense of Montag’s only answer to Beatty’s dare. Beatty has struck him, found the green bullet, and said, “We’ll trace this and drop it on your friend.” Montag twitches the safety catch. Beatty dares him with a line of Shakespeare, calls him a “second-hand litterateur,” and says, “pull the trigger.” He takes one step toward Montag. Montag only says, “We never burned right…” Earlier that night Montag burned his bedroom and felt “it was good to burn”; in the parlour he gave the room “a gift of one huge bright yellow flower of burning.” The student decides what burning right would have been. Write a claim with evidence, in complete sentences, and answer the strongest case for another reading. It takes up one part of the last written question: Montag’s words show what he thinks fire is for at the moment he turns it on the Captain. Do not make Beatty’s death a triumph or a fit punishment; the page makes it horrible. Do not say Beatty wanted to die.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue that burning right means burning the right things: in the parlour Montag gave the empty walls “a gift of one huge bright yellow flower of burning”, as if that emptiness, not the books, had always deserved the fire. Another might argue that “We” is a confession: Montag counts himself with the firemen, whose fire Beatty praised as “Antibiotic, aesthetic, practical” and never as right, and Montag himself had just put away “the senseless problem” in his bedroom. A careful answer may notice that the sentence trails off and is never finished, and may ask whether Montag himself knows what burning right would be.

3. Beatty says the beauty of fire is that it “destroys responsibility and consequences.” When Montag turns the flamethrower on Beatty, is he breaking free of the firemen's way or still living by it?

What it asks This is the last question the student meets, and it gathers the earlier ones: what kind of good Clarisse did, if she “didn’t do anything to anyone”; what Montag is trying to burn when a voice has to shout “The books, Montag!”; what has changed for Montag between shouting that Mildred didn’t put in the alarm and asking Beatty whether she did; why Montag makes the other two firemen turn their backs; why Beatty gave Montag a hint at all, when he praises fire as “clean, quick, sure”; and what it would have meant to burn right. Now the student judges the act itself. Beatty says fire’s “real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences. A problem gets too burdensome, then into the furnace with it.” At his own house Montag feels just that: “If there was no solution, well then now there was no problem, either. Fire was best for everything!” Not long after, Beatty pockets the green bullet and says, “We’ll trace this and drop it on your friend.” Montag cries no and twitches the safety catch, and Beatty burns. Montag shuts his eyes and tries to cover his ears. Thinking back later, “he could never decide whether the hands or Beatty’s reaction to the hands gave him the final push toward murder.” Then he fights off the Hound and is left with a numb leg: “A numbness in a numbness hollowed into a numbness…” The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest objection. Do not make Beatty’s death a triumph or a fit punishment, and do not dwell on how he burned. Do not say Beatty wanted to die, that Faber is found, or that the needle will kill or cripple Montag.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue that Montag breaks free: Beatty’s fire is meant to leave “nothing to rot later”, but Montag fires to keep Beatty from dropping the bullet “on your friend”, and afterward he cannot make the act go away. He shouts, covers his ears, and later “could never decide” what pushed him, so the responsibility stays with him. Another might argue he is still living by it: not long after feeling that “Fire was best for everything!” he meets the most burdensome problem of the night and puts it “into the furnace” with a fireman’s flamethrower. A careful answer may grant both sides and ask whether a man can use the firemen’s answer without becoming the kind of man who uses it, and may notice that the reading leaves Montag not freed but numb, “A numbness in a numbness hollowed into a numbness…”