Part Three, Reading 3 · Burning Bright — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

Floating in the river, Montag decides he must never burn again, because the sun and time already burn everything. Is that a good reason to give up burning?

The tension Watching his own hunt on Faber's small screen, Montag finds it “wondrous to watch, not without its strange pleasure” and wonders what he could say “an instant before oblivion”; in the river the show falls away, “His thoughts stopped rushing with his blood.”, and his mind turns from being watched to what he must do.

Today's focus

How Montag goes from watching himself hunted as a show to thinking one long, quiet thought of his own about saving and destroying.

The shape at a glance

Montag raps at Faber’s back door in the half-light, with sirens wailing far off. Faber pulls him in. Montag says the captain is dead, killed with the flamethrower, and pours out the week: Beatty dead, Millie gone, the house burnt, his job gone, a book planted in a fireman’s house. Faber says it was coming on for a long time, and that he himself feels alive for the first time in years, maybe because he is doing right at last, maybe because he does not want to look a coward. Montag gives him a hundred dollars. Faber tells him to follow the river and then the old railroad lines, where he has heard there are walking camps of hunted men, and says he is leaving on the five a.m. bus to see a retired printer in St. Louis. In the bedroom Faber shows a hidden TV the size of a postal card. It is spelling Montag’s name: a new Mechanical Hound has been brought in, and the network will follow it by camera helicopter. Faber pours whisky. Montag feels his own scent everywhere in the room. On the small screen he watches the burnt house, fascinated, and imagines the whole hunt ending at this window, with millions watching, and wonders what single word he could say to wake them. The Hound is given his flamethrower to smell. Montag tells Faber how to kill the trail: burn the bedspread, the chair and the rug, wipe the doorknobs, run the air-conditioning, turn the lawn sprinklers on full. Faber fills a suitcase with his old clothes, and Montag douses it with whisky. Montag runs for the river. Through the windows of wakened houses he watches the Hound on the parlour walls; it pauses at Faber’s house, then turns away. He reminds himself that this is his own chess-game, not a show, and runs on. The police tell everyone to open a door or look out at the count of ten. At ten he is past the last houses, and he imagines thousands of grey faces peering out. At the river he strips, splashes himself with whisky, puts on Faber’s clothes, throws his own away, and lets the current take him. The helicopters’ light sweeps the water; he dives under, and the search swings back over the city. Floating in the dark, he feels he has left a stage behind. He sees the stars for the first time in a dozen years. The suitcase sinks. The river gives him the leisure to think, and he reasons out why he must never burn again: the sun burns time, so everything burns, and someone has to stop, and begin the saving. His heel touches land. He expects the Hound, but the search has veered inland. He thinks of Millie, and how she would take the silence, and he is sad. The smell of hay brings back a farm from his childhood, and he imagines a night in a hayloft, a young woman braiding her hair in a far window, and in the morning milk and fruit set out for him at the foot of the stairs: a sign that the world might accept him. He steps from the river, and the land rushes at him like a tidal wave. Too much land!

A way in

Before reading, ask the student what it would be like to see yourself, live, on every screen in the city. Read aloud to “that would sear all their faces and wake them up?” and stop: ask what Montag is feeling as he watches, and leave it open. Read on through the count of ten to “But he was at the river.” and stop again: ask what the city has just done, and what Montag has made of the faces he cannot see. Read the river slowly, from “He floated on his back” to “Now the guild of the asbestos-weaver must open shop very soon.”, and leave a silence; do not explain Montag’s thought about the sun, because the last written question asks the student to test it. Then read to the end without stopping. Do not end the lesson on calm: the reading ends with “Too much land!” Do not say the Hound has lost Montag for good; the search has only “veered inland”. Do not say Faber reaches St. Louis, that the woman in the dream is Clarisse, or anything about who Montag will meet along the tracks.

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells the reading back in three parts. First Faber’s house: the knock, the week poured out, Faber feeling alive, the money and the plan for the river and the tracks, the postal-card screen, the whisky, the scent everywhere, the daydream of the last speech, the orders to burn and wipe and spray, the suitcase. Then the run: the Hound on the parlour walls, the pause at Faber’s, the chess-game, the count of ten, the grey faces, the river. Last the river and the bank: the clothes, the current, the light and the dive, the stage left behind, the stars, the sun-and-time thought, the bank, Millie, the hayloft dream, the milk and fruit, and the land like a wave. Ask for three or four sentences for each part, in order.

Imitate the author After copying, the student writes four sentences built like the first passage, about a body coming to rest after a hard day: a long sentence that turns on a semicolon and ends on a list of three joined by “and”; a sentence that names one gift twice, the way Montag gets “the time at last, the leisure”; and two short sentences, six and seven words, in which something slows. Then three sentences built like the second, about something worth keeping: a long sentence that lists where it could be kept and what could destroy it, ending on the worst; a plain sentence about the world; and a short sentence that says what “must” begin “very soon”.

Debate Take sides on the last written question. First make two lists together. Reasons it is a good reason: time already burns “the years and the people”, so every fire the firemen light adds to a loss nobody can undo; “The sun wouldn’t, certainly” stop, so a person has to; the thought turns at once to keeping, “in books, in records, in people’s heads”; it is the first reason Montag reaches on his own, given “the leisure”. Reasons it is not enough: the same facts could say nothing he does matters, since time burns everything “anyway, without any help from him”; he did not need the sun to know that burning books and houses was wrong; that same morning, before he ran, he gave Faber orders to burn; a thought reached floating in the dark, after a night of running, may not hold up on land, where he is knocked flat. One side argues each, with a reason and a line from the reading, then they switch. No side may say the Hound has lost Montag for good, that Faber reaches St. Louis, that the woman in the dream is Clarisse, or anything about the people along the tracks.

Purpose Close on the reading’s first words and its last. It opens with a rap at a back door and “Faber!”, a man calling for another person to let him in, and it ends with Montag alone on the bank crying “Too much land!” Ask what Montag has lost and found between the two. Then ask why Bradbury ends with the land knocking him down, and not with the glass of milk he dreamed of. Do not say the Hound has lost him for good; the search has only “veered inland”.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud together from “He floated on his back when the valise filled and sank” to “Now the guild of the asbestos-weaver must open shop very soon.” Talk through what Montag says the sun burns, in his own words, without explaining it for the student. Then answer the last written question aloud, starting from the line “One of them had to stop burning.”

On level Talk through the five discussion questions in order, then have the student write answers to the three written questions in complete sentences: a claim, evidence from two 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. The river “held him comfortably”, but when he steps out, “The land rushed at him, a tidal wave”, and he remembers a wave from his childhood that “slammed him down in salt mud”. He cries “Too much water!” and then “Too much land!” Ask why the freedom Montag has run all night toward should feel, at first, like being knocked down. The answer must use only this reading and must not say what happens next.

Discussion

1. Montag tells Faber that for a long time he “was saving something up”. What was it?Character

What it asks It asks the student to read one plain phrase closely. Montag arrives at Faber’s with the captain dead and pours out his week: “Good Christ, the things I’ve done in a single week!” Faber answers, “You did what you had to do. It was coming on for a long time.” Montag agrees: “It saved itself up to happen. I could feel it for a long time, I was saving something up, I went around doing one thing and feeling another. God, it was all there. It’s a wonder it didn’t show on me, like fat.” The student decides what he was saving up. It takes up one part of the last written question: in the river Montag thinks “someone had to do the saving and keeping”, and the word was already his at Faber’s door. Do not explain the river thought for the student, and do not say what Montag will save later or who he will meet along the tracks.

A strong answer A strong response might say he was saving up a fire: “It saved itself up to happen,” and what came out was “the things I’ve done in a single week!”, a dead captain and a burnt house. Another might say he was saving a hidden self: he went around “doing one thing and feeling another”, and “it was all there” the whole time, kept where no one could see it. A careful answer may notice that the word comes back in the river, where “someone had to do the saving and keeping”, and may ask whether what Montag saved up was a fire, a keeping, or both.

2. Watching his own hunt on Faber’s little screen, Montag thinks, “that’s all taking place just for me, by God.” What is he enjoying?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to name an uneasy pleasure. Faber lifts a picture frame aside to show “a television screen the size of a postal card”, and it is spelling out Montag’s name. On it are Montag’s burnt house and the crowd. “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.” He imagines the whole hunt ending at this very window, “a drama to be watched objectively,” with himself caught “in view of ten or twenty or thirty million people,” and wonders what single word could “sear all their faces and wake them up”. He pictures the end as “a splendid fade-out!” The student decides what, exactly, Montag is enjoying. It takes up one part of the last written question: Montag at his most watched, before the river gives him his own thought. Do not skip the pleasure, and do not say it is simply fear.

A strong answer A strong response might say he is enjoying mattering: “that’s all taking place just for me,” and he pictures “ten or twenty or thirty million people” waiting on what he might say. Another might say he is enjoying the distance: on the screen the hunt is “so remote and no part of him”, “a drama to be watched objectively,” and a man watching a show is safe. A careful answer may notice that he even imagines his own death in the network’s words, “a splendid fade-out!”, and that later, running, he has to remind himself “again” that it is “his own chess-game”, so the pull of the show does not let go easily.

3. As the doors open, Montag pictures the faces behind them “like grey animals peering from electric caves”. How fair is that picture?Moral reasoning

What it asks It asks the student to judge how Montag sees the city. The police tell everyone in the Elm Terrace area to open a door or look from a window: “The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house.” As they count to ten, Montag runs. “He felt the city turn to its thousands of doors.” “The people sleepwalking in their hallways.” “He felt their hands on the doorknobs!” At ten he is past the last row of houses, and the page says, “He imagined thousands on thousands of faces”, “pale, night-frightened faces, like grey animals peering from electric caves, faces with grey colourless eyes, grey tongues and grey thoughts”. Earlier the same people were “civilian parlour-sitters who had been wakened from sleep a few minutes ago” by their walls. Until this week, Montag was a fireman who lived behind a door like theirs. The student decides how fair Montag’s picture of them is. It takes up one part of the last written question: Montag seeing for himself, and not the way the walls see.

A strong answer A strong response might call it fair: the people are “sleepwalking in their hallways”, opening their doors because a wall told them to, so they can watch “the big game, the hunt, the one-man carnival.” Another might call it unfair: the page says “He imagined” them, he never sees one face, they are “night-frightened”, and not long ago Montag lived behind a door like theirs, so there may be more behind those faces than he can see. A careful answer may notice that Montag paints the city’s people grey at the very moment the city is turning him into a show, and may ask whether either side is seeing the other as it is.

4. Close to shore, Montag thinks about how Millie would take all this silence, and he is sad. Who is he sad for?Character

What it asks It asks the student to read one short sentence closely. The river has carried Montag to the shore and his heel touches land, but he has not stepped out. The Hound is not there, and the search has “veered inland”. He listens: “Nothing. Nothing.” Then: “Millie, he thought. All this country here. Listen to it! Nothing and nothing. So much silence, Millie, I wonder how you’d take it? Would you shout Shut up, shut up! Millie, Millie. And he was sad.” At Faber’s, earlier, he said, “there’s Millie gone, I thought she was my wife, but now I don’t know.” The student decides who the sadness is for. It takes up one part of the last written question: what Montag leaves behind as he turns, alone, to what he must do. Do not say where Millie is now or what becomes of her; the reading says only that she is gone and “not here”.

A strong answer A strong response might say he is sad for Millie: in the first real quiet of his life, he knows she would “shout Shut up, shut up!” and could never have what he has found. Another might say he is sad for himself: he is still talking to her, though at Faber’s he said “I thought she was my wife, but now I don’t know”, and the silence shows him how alone he is. A careful answer may notice that he says her name four times in a few lines, and may ask why the first person he wants to share the silence with is the one person who could not stand it.

5. Montag dreams of coming down a hayloft stair to a glass of milk and some fruit, “so fully aware of the world that he would be afraid”. What is there to be afraid of?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to find the fear inside a gift. The smell of hay brings back a farm Montag visited as a boy, and he pictures a night in a barn loft, “hidden and safe”. Below, “he would hear a sound like feet moving, perhaps. He would tense and sit up. The sound would move away.” A young woman braids her hair in a far window; “It would be hard to see her”. In the morning, “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.” No one is there to give it. The student decides what there is to fear in so small a thing. It takes up one part of the last written question: what it costs a man to begin thinking for himself, once no one is watching. Do not say the woman in the window is Clarisse; her face would only be like that of a girl from long ago. Leave the land and “Too much land!” for later in the lesson.

A strong answer A strong response might say he fears the world itself: after a life behind walls and a night on every screen, being “so fully aware of the world” is new, and new things frighten, the way the river was “a reality that was unreal because it was new”. Another might say he fears the answer: the milk is only “Some sign that the immense world would accept him”, and a man who “burnt things with the firemen” may not believe he will be accepted, which is why he would “stand over the small miracle and at last bend to touch it.” A careful answer may notice that no one is there to give the gift, so no one watches him take it, and may ask what a man has been missing if a glass of milk and an apple feel like a miracle.

Critical thinking

1. Before he runs, Montag tells Faber to burn the bedspread he touched, the chair and the rug. Once he has decided he must never burn again, would he still give that order?

What it asks It asks the student to test what “burning” means. At Faber’s, with the Hound already smelling his flamethrower, Montag says, “There’s no use your being discovered. 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.” He adds, “With any luck at all, we can kill the trail in here, anyway…” Soon after, floating in the river, “he knew why he must never burn again in his life.” He thinks, “The world was full of burning of all types and sizes”, and that “Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again”. The student decides whether the Montag of the river would still give that order. 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: what exactly Montag is giving up. Do not explain the sun-and-time idea for the student.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue he would still give it: at Faber’s the fire saves a man, since “There’s no use your being discovered”, and burns nothing worth keeping, while what Montag gives up is the burning that destroys what must be kept, now that “the saving and putting away had to begin again”. Another might argue he would not: he knew he “must never burn again in his life”, and his own thought in the river says “The world was full of burning of all types and sizes”, a chair in an incinerator among them. A careful answer may ask whether Montag’s promise is about fire at all, or about what fire is used to destroy.

2. When the searchlights swing back to the land, Montag feels “as if he had left a stage behind and many actors.” Which part of the night does Bradbury make more real, the chase or the river?

What it asks It asks the student to judge how Bradbury writes the two halves of the night. The chase is full of the body and of noise: “Leg out, leg down, leg out and down.” “His throat was burnt rust and his eyes were wept dry with running.” The police count to ten, and doorknobs turn on five thousand doors. Yet Montag sees it in screen words: “Twenty million Montags running, running like an ancient flickery Keystone Comedy”, a “fascinating seance”, and he must remind himself it is “no fictional episode”. At the river, “He touched it, just to be sure it was real.” Floating, “He felt as if he had left a stage behind and many actors.” He is moving “from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.” “The river was very real; it held him comfortably”. The stars, out for the first time in a dozen years, “threaten to roll over and crush him”, and at the end the land knocks him down: “Too much land!” The student decides which part Bradbury makes more real. 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: whether the river is the right place to trust a thought. Do not treat the river as scenery, and do not end on calm.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue the river is more real: Bradbury writes the chase as “a stage” with “many actors”, a “Keystone Comedy,” a “seance”, while at the river Montag “touched it, just to be sure it was real”, and “The river was very real”. Another might argue the chase is more real: it lives in his body, “His throat was burnt rust and his eyes were wept dry with running”, while the river is “a reality that was unreal because it was new”, the stars threaten to crush him, and the land knocks him down. A careful answer may notice that the realest moment of all may be the last one, “Too much land!”, and may ask whether something can be real and still be more than a person can take in at once.

3. Floating in the river, Montag decides he must never burn again, because the sun and time already burn everything. Is that a good reason to give up burning?

What it asks This is the last question the student meets, and it gathers the earlier ones: what Montag was saving up all those years; what Montag enjoys as he watches his own hunt; how fair his picture of the grey faces at the doors is; who his sadness at the shore is for; what there is to fear in a glass of milk and some fruit; whether the Montag of the river would still order the fire at Faber’s; and which part of the night Bradbury makes more real. Now the student tests Montag’s own reasoning. The river “held him comfortably and gave him the time at last, the leisure, to consider this month, this year, and a lifetime of years.” “His thoughts stopped rushing with his blood.” He looks at the moon and asks what lights it, and what lights the sun: “Its own fire.” Then: “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.” “Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again”, “in books, in records, in people’s heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silver-fish, rust and dry-rot, and men with matches.” The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest objection. Do not explain the sun-and-time idea for the student; let them test it. Do not say the Hound has lost Montag for good, that Faber reaches St. Louis, that the woman in the dream is Clarisse, or anything about the people along the tracks.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue it is a good reason: time already burns “the years and the people”, so every fire the firemen light only adds to a loss nobody can undo, and since “The sun wouldn’t, certainly”, someone has to begin “the saving and putting away”; it is also the first reason Montag has reached on his own, given “the leisure” to think. Another might argue it is not enough: the same facts could say his choice makes no difference, since time burns everything “anyway, without any help from him”, and he did not need the moon and the sun to know that burning books and houses was wrong. A careful answer may grant both and notice that the thought turns from stopping to keeping, “in books, in records, in people’s heads,” and may ask whether Montag’s real reason is the sun, or the saving that the sun makes urgent.