Fahrenheit 451

Part One, Reading 3

The Hearth and the Salamander

Ray Bradbury · Pathfinders 7th–9th

Teaching Companion Print Adapt for your student

Copywork

You weren’t hurting anyone, you were hurting only things! And since things really couldn’t be hurt, since things felt nothing, and things don’t scream or whimper, as this woman might begin to scream and cry out, there was nothing to tease your conscience later. You were simply cleaning up. Janitorial work, essentially. Everything to its proper place.

On the front porch where she had come to weigh them quietly with her eyes, her quietness a condemnation, the woman stood motionless. Beatty flicked his fingers to spark the kerosene. He was too late. Montag gasped. The woman on the porch reached out with contempt for them all, and struck the kitchen match against the railing.

Read both passages aloud. The first tells how a burning always went. Which word in the second passage could never fit in the first?

For the educator Two passages; copy them as shown. The first comes from the attic, while the books are falling on Montag, and tells how a burning always went: the police took the owner away first, so the firemen found an empty house. It opens with an exclamation, then one long sentence built on “since” twice and then “and”, with “things” three more times, that piles up reasons until it lands on “there was nothing to tease your conscience later.” Then three short pieces tidy it away; the last two are not full sentences, and Bradbury means them that way. Point out the apostrophes in “weren’t”, “couldn’t” and “don’t”, and that “you” here means anyone, the way people say “you” about a job. The second passage is the porch, at the end of the night. It holds the vocabulary words “condemnation” and “contempt”. Its first sentence opens with a long place phrase, sets “her quietness a condemnation” off in commas, and keeps its subject waiting to the very end: “the woman stood motionless.” Then come three short sentences, each shorter than the last: eight words, four, two. The last sentence is long again, and it ends on her act. Name what she does plainly and do not linger on what follows; the passage does not. 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. Students may choose “condemnation”, “contempt”, “motionless”, “gasped” or “too late”. Ask why the word they chose could not live in the first passage, and let them find for themselves that the first passage has no person in it who can act, and the second does; do not name it first.

Discussion

Narration Tell the reading back from Clarisse’s week of walks to the corner the truck drives past. Then choose the moment where Bradbury slows down the most, and say why he slows down there.

Clarisse asks Montag, “Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?” He answers, “You sound so very old.” Why doesn’t he answer her question? Character
At the card table, Montag sees that every fireman there is a mirror image of himself. By the ride home, is he still one of them? Theme
When Montag asks if firemen once stopped fires, Stoneman and Black lay their rulebooks out for him. He has known those books for years. Why show him what he already knows? Inference
The woman is still in her house when the firemen break in. Montag feels “an immense irritation.” He thinks, “She shouldn’t be here, on top of everything!” On top of what? Character
Montag tells himself he did nothing. His hand stole the book on its own. Do you believe him? Moral reasoning

Make a Connection Beatty knows that the woman’s words were first spoken in 1555. Think of words that people still repeat long after the person who said them is gone. What keeps words like that alive?

Vocabulary

condemnation: On the front porch where she had come to weigh them quietly with her eyes, her quietness a condemnation, the woman stood motionless. A strong judgment that someone has done wrong. The woman says nothing on the porch, and her quiet judges the men more strongly than words would.
For the educator Set it beside “accusing” and “accusation” in the attic. An accusation says you did wrong; a condemnation says you have been judged guilty.
contempt: The woman on the porch reached out with contempt for them all, and struck the kitchen match against the railing. The feeling that someone is beneath you and not worth your respect. The woman on the porch looks down on the men, all of them, as she strikes the match.
For the educator Compare “condemnation” one sentence before: a condemnation judges, and contempt looks down. Note “for them all”: Montag, who begged her to come, is among them.
erected: The tick of the playing-cards on the greasy table-top, all the sounds came to Montag, behind his closed eyes, behind the barrier he had momentarily erected. Built or set up so that it stands. At the card table, Montag has put up a wall inside himself, for a moment, against the room.
For the educator Usually said of buildings, statues and fences; Bradbury uses it for a wall in the mind. Compare “erect” as a describing word: standing straight up.
proclivities: Were all firemen picked then for their looks as well as their proclivities? Natural leanings: what a person tends to like or do, often something others would frown on. Montag wonders whether firemen are chosen for a taste for burning as well as for their faces.
For the educator From Latin proclivis, sloping forward, as on a downhill road. A proclivity is the way a person’s nature runs downhill. The word usually carries a faint warning; people rarely speak of a proclivity for kindness.
asylum: They took him screaming off to the asylum. A hospital where people judged insane were locked away. The man whose library the firemen burned last week was taken to one.
For the educator The older meaning is a safe place, a refuge; people still ask a country for asylum. Ask the student which meaning the man got.
odious: Beatty, Stoneman, and Black ran up the sidewalk, suddenly odious and fat in the plump fireproof slickers. Hateful and ugly to look at or think about. As they run up to the old house in their slickers, the firemen suddenly seem this way.
For the educator Related to the noun odium, strong hatred. Note “suddenly”: an hour before, these were the men whose faces were mirror-images of Montag’s own.
heresy: A man named Latimer said that to a man named Nicholas Ridley, as they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy, on October 16, 1555. A belief that goes against what a church or a ruler says everyone must believe. Latimer and Ridley were burned for theirs.
For the educator From a Greek word for choosing. A heretic is someone who chose a belief for themselves when they were told what to believe.

Critical thinking

On the ride home, Beatty finishes the woman’s words. He knows who first said them, and where, and when. Does knowing all that make him more to blame than the other firemen?
The woman strikes the match herself before Beatty can. Did the firemen win that night, or did she?