Part Three, Reading 2 · Burning Bright

Fahrenheit 451

Pathfinders · 7th–9th

Copywork

He stood and he had only one leg. The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log 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. He wept.

Mrs. Black, are you asleep in there? he thought. This isn’t good, but your husband did it to others and never asked and never wondered and never worried. And now since you’re a fireman’s wife, it’s your house and your turn, for all the houses your husband burned and the people he hurt without thinking… The house did not reply.

Read both passages aloud. In which one does Montag sound more guilty?

For the educator Two passages; copy them as shown. The first is Montag in the street by the burnt house, the moment he gets to his feet. Its first sentence is plain, eight words. The second is a simile built on “like”, and it holds two of the vocabulary words, “penance” and “obscure”. The third opens with a “When” clause and a comma, then gives the pain strong verbs: “a shower of silver needles gushed up the length of the calf and went off in the knee.” The fourth is two words. The second passage is Montag’s thought on the Blacks’ back porch, so it takes no quotation marks; “he thought” is all that marks it. Its first sentence is a question to someone who cannot hear. Its second repeats “and never” three times. Its third runs on through commas and stops on an ellipsis. Then comes a new paragraph of five words: “The house did not reply.” For imitation, have the student read a passage twice, set it aside, rebuild it from memory, and then compare. The talk prompt has more than one answer. Some students will choose the first: his leg is “a penance for some obscure sin,” and the passage ends “He wept.” Others will choose the second: a man who says “This isn’t good” and then gives reason after reason may be arguing with his own guilt. Once they have chosen, ask which words do it. Let them find this for themselves. Do not decide for the student whether Montag is right to feel guilty; the last written question asks them to judge the act itself.

Discussion

Narration Tell the reading back in order, from the burnt house and the alley to the phone booth and the sirens. Then pick the moment where Bradbury slows time down the most, and say how he does it.

1. In the alley, Montag tells himself, “If we have to burn, let’s take a few more with us.” A few more what?Inference

2. Sobbing on the gravel, Montag is suddenly sure that Beatty wanted to die. How much should we trust a thought he has while he is crying?Character

3. Montag wonders if the people in that car were the ones who killed Clarisse, and then his mind says it again, “very loud.” What changed the second time?Character

4. Montag moves the books from hand to hand “as if they were a poker hand he could not figure.” What can’t he figure out about them?Inference

5. Montag thinks “Good-bye, Captain” as he leaves Beatty, and “Good night, Mrs. Black” at the very end. Does he mean them the same way?Tone

Make a Connection Think of a story you know, or a time in history, when people paid for something a family member had done. What would make that fair or unfair?

Vocabulary

penance The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log he was carrying along as a penance for some obscure sin.Something hard or painful a person takes on to make up for a wrong. Montag’s dead leg feels like a punishment he must drag along for a sin he cannot quite name.

obscure The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log he was carrying along as a penance for some obscure sin.Hard to see or make out; not clearly known. Montag feels he is paying for a sin, but he cannot say which one.

instinctively The driver of that car, seeing Montag down, instinctively considered the probability that running over a body at that speed might turn the car upside down and spill them out.Without stopping to think; the body or mind acts on its own. The driver weighs the danger in a flash: hitting a body at that speed might flip the car.

thoroughfare He ran steadily for six blocks, in the alley, and then the alley opened out on to a wide empty thoroughfare ten lanes wide.A main road that people and cars pass along. Here it is ten lanes wide, empty and brightly lit.

trajectory The beetle came in a single whistling trajectory, fired from an invisible rifle.The path something follows when it is thrown or fired, like a bullet or a ball. The car comes at Montag as straight and fast as a shot.

phosphorescent He was a phosphorescent target; he knew it, he felt it.Glowing with a faint light of its own, the way a watch face or some sea creatures glow in the dark. Montag feels so exposed that he seems to shine.

Critical thinking

1. Montag hears that “War has been declared” and tries to feel it, but nothing happens. Why does a thin black line of tread on his finger reach him when the war cannot?

2. Montag is a fireman too, but he thinks Mr. Black hurt people and “never asked and never wondered and never worried.” What, if anything, gives Montag the right to judge Mr. Black?

3. Montag plants books in the Blacks' house and calls in the alarm while Mrs. Black sleeps. Is this a fair blow against the firemen, or the same kind of cruelty he is running from?