Part One, Reading 5 · The Hearth and the Salamander — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

Montag agrees with Beatty that happiness is important, yet he feels he is not happy. Is Beatty’s kind of happiness worth having?

The tension Beatty promises that people can “stay happy all the time” and ends “Fire is bright and fire is clean,” and Montag, once he has gone, says “He’s right. Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying to myself, I’m not happy, I’m not happy.”

Today's focus

Captain Beatty visits the sick fireman and tells him how burning became the firemen’s job. When he leaves, Montag shows Mildred the books he has hidden for a year and opens one.

The shape at a glance

Montag is in bed with a book hidden behind his pillow when Captain Beatty arrives. Beatty settles in with his pipe, guesses that Montag meant to call in sick, tells him to take the night off, and offers to tell him the history of their job. He says it got going with photography, film, radio and television: as the world filled with people, books were cut down to digests and snap endings, school was shortened, and thinking gave way to sports, fun and speed. While he talks, Mildred fidgets, says some of his words back to him, and tries to fix Montag’s pillow until her fingers find the book; Montag shouts at her to sit down, and Beatty goes on as if nothing had happened. Beatty says it did not come from the Government: the public, and groups who did not want to be offended, let books die. When Montag asks what the firemen are for, then, Beatty says people must all be alike, a book is a loaded gun in the house next door, and the firemen guard everyone’s peace of mind. He lists books that upset one group or another, and after each says “Burn it.” Fire, he says, is bright and clean. Montag asks about Clarisse. Beatty says “We’ve a record on her family,” calls her a time bomb who asked why, and says she is better off dead; Montag says, “Yes, dead.” Beatty says a man who tries to measure the universe ends up feeling lonely, and that he has tried it. Before he leaves he says every fireman gets curious about books once, that the books say nothing, and that a fireman who takes one home may keep it twenty-four hours before the firemen come and burn it for him. Montag says he may come in later, and thinks he will never go in again. He remembers Clarisse repeating her uncle’s guess that the front porches were taken away so people would not sit and talk and think. Mildred sits with her parlour announcer, whose set speaks her name. Montag says he wants to smash things and kill things; Mildred offers him the car. He says Beatty is right that happiness is important, and yet he is not happy; Mildred says she is. Then he climbs on a chair, opens the air-conditioning grille, and drops some twenty books at her feet. She seizes one and runs for the incinerator; he catches her, slaps her, and pleads for a day or two to look at them, promising they will burn them together if the Captain is right. The front door voice calls, and Mildred cries that it is Beatty come back. They do not answer, and the footsteps go away. Montag opens a book, reads a line about eleven thousand people who died rather than break their eggs at the smaller end, and Mildred says it means nothing and the Captain was right. Montag says they will start over again, at the beginning.

A way in

Before reading, ask the student to name something they enjoy that leaves no room to think, and whether they would give it up. Read aloud from the opening to “We’re talking!” and stop: ask what is happening in the room while Beatty talks. Read on to “Yes, dead.” and stop again: ask what Beatty says the firemen are for. Read from there to the end without stopping. Let Beatty’s lecture sound as quick and funny as it is; do not make him a straw man. Take his examples of groups offended by books plainly, as his reasons, not as the book’s. Name plainly that Montag slaps Mildred and has hidden books from her for a year. Do not say who is at the front door, that Beatty knows Montag has a book, that Beatty secretly loves books, that the state killed Clarisse, or that reading will make Montag happy or wise; the reading says none of these.

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells the reading back in three parts. First Beatty’s visit: the pipe and the matchbox, the history of digests and speed and sports, Mildred and the pillow, the groups who were offended and “Burn it,” the firemen as keepers of the peace, Clarisse, the twenty-four hours, and “I’ll be in later. Maybe.” Then the house after he leaves: the porches Clarisse remembered, the announcer who speaks Mildred’s name, the urge to smash things and kill things, the car, and “I’m not happy.” Last, the books: the grille, the twenty books, the incinerator and the slap, the plea, the voice at the door, and the line about the eggs. 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 that speeds up: four short scraps (a hyphenated word repeated and stretched, a one-word question, a list of three with no verb, and a short exclamation with a phrase set off by commas), then one long sentence that lists three kinds of people and ends on a picture of a machine. Then three sentences built like the second passage, about someone emptying a hiding place: one that chains its actions with “and,” one that lists the things by size and colour with commas only, and a short, still one that shows where everything ends up.

Debate Take sides on the last written question. First make two lists together. Reasons Beatty’s happiness is worth having: his point that asking why leaves you “very unhappy indeed”; Montag’s own “He’s right. Happiness is important.”; Mildred’s “And proud of it.”; in Beatty’s world no one need feel “inferior”; the first line the books give back is about eggs. Reasons it is not: it needs people to “Forget them” when they die; it calls Clarisse “better off dead”; Mildred’s cure for a bad feeling is a fast drive where she hits dogs; Beatty calls his own fun “only a tactile reaction to vibration”; Montag sat through it all saying “I’m not happy.” One side argues each, with a reason and a line from the reading, then they switch. Neither side may make Beatty a straw man or say that reading will make Montag happy.

Purpose Close on where the reading stops: “We’ll start over again, at the beginning.” Ask why Bradbury ends a reading full of Beatty’s quick answers on a man who has no answer yet. Then go back to Beatty’s arrival: before his history begins, he strikes his match and blows it out, again and again, and he takes “a full minute” to settle in. Ask what Beatty does with fire while he talks about it. If there is time, read the line about the parlour announcer, “He was a friend, no doubt of it, a good friend.”, and ask who in the room would say so.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud together from “Beatty peered at the smoke pattern he had put out on the air.” to “We’re talking!” and talk through the first discussion question (how much of Beatty’s speech reaches Mildred). Then read the paragraph where Montag tells Mildred, “He’s right,” and answer the last written question aloud, starting from what Beatty promises people can do “all the time” and what Montag kept saying to himself.

On level Talk through the six discussion questions in order, then have the student write answers to both 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 set two moments side by side. When Beatty asks if he will come in tonight, Montag says “I’ll be in later. Maybe.” and thinks “I’ll never come in again.” A few minutes later he tells Mildred, “I haven’t decided.” Ask which of these is the truth, and how sure Montag is of anything yet. The answer must not say that Beatty knows Montag has a book.

Discussion

1. During Beatty’s speech, Mildred yanks at the pillow. Twice she echoes him: “Snap ending.” and “Wow.” How much of the speech reaches her?Inference

What it asks It asks the student about Mildred during the lecture. Beatty talks for pages, and he talks to Montag; he “ignored her and continued.” Mildred fidgets, gets up, and moves around the room. When Beatty says everything “boils down to the gag, the snap ending,” she says, “Snap ending.” and nods. When he says life becomes “everything bang, boff, and wow!” she says “Wow,” as she yanks at the pillow where the book is hidden. Moments later her fingers find it, and she asks “What’s this?” “almost with delight.” The student decides how much of the speech gets through to her. It takes up one part of the last written question: Beatty is describing the happy people of his world, and one of them is in the room. Do not treat the lecture as backstory to skim; the struggle over the pillow runs right through it. Do not make Mildred empty and nothing more; hers are the hands that find the book.

A strong answer A strong response might say very little reaches her: she is busy “picking things up and putting them down,” and she says “Wow,” while “yanking at the pillow,” so she catches a word and not the sense. Another might say all of it reaches her in a way: she nods at “the snap ending,” and Beatty’s history is a history of people like her, so she answers him in his own words. A careful answer may notice that the one time Beatty speaks to her by name, it is a jab (“only a faint rumour of a title to you, Mrs. Montag”), and that the one thing in the room that makes her ask a question is the book.

2. Beatty says people gave up books on their own. So Montag asks, “what about the firemen, then?” How well does Beatty answer him?Theme

What it asks It asks the student to test Beatty’s argument at its joint. Beatty’s history says books shrank on their own, cut down for radio and digests, until the public, “knowing what it wanted,” let them go: “It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!” Montag asks the plain next question: if people stopped wanting books, why burn them? Beatty answers with the bright boy the class hated, “We must all be alike,” a book as “a loaded gun in the house next door,” and firemen as “custodians of our peace of mind” and “official censors, judges, and executors.” The student judges whether that answer holds together. It takes up one part of the last written question: what Beatty’s happy world needs in order to stay happy. Do not make Beatty a straw man; his answer is quick and partly convincing. Take his examples of groups who are offended by books plainly, as his reasons, not as the book’s.

A strong answer A strong response might say the answer holds: in Beatty’s story people want to be equal, so a reader next door is a mountain that makes the rest “cower,” and the firemen guard “our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior.” Another might say it does not: if the public, “knowing what it wanted,” let books die, a book would threaten no one, and his own “no censorship, to start with” leaves room for censorship later, with the firemen as “official censors.” A careful answer may notice that Beatty’s fear sounds personal (“Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me?”) and ask whom the fire protects.

3. Montag asks how Clarisse came to be so different. Beatty answers, and ends by saying she is better off dead. Montag says, “Yes, dead.” What is he doing with those two words?Character

What it asks It asks the student about Montag’s shortest answer in the reading. After the long lecture, Montag holds his breath and asks about the girl next door: “She’s gone now, I think, dead. I can’t even remember her face. But she was different.” Beatty knows the name at once. “We’ve a record on her family,” he says; she was “a time bomb”; “She didn’t want to know how a thing was done, but why.” He ends, “The poor girl’s better off dead.” Montag says, “Yes, dead.” Beatty goes straight on. The student decides what Montag means by it. It takes up one part of the last written question: Beatty’s happy world has a place for Clarisse only as someone gone. Do not say that the firemen or the state killed Clarisse; Beatty says only that they kept a record and calls her “a time bomb.” Keep in mind that the book is still behind Montag’s pillow.

A strong answer A strong response might say he is playing it safe: the book is behind his pillow, he has just “held his breath,” and he even tries not to look at Mildred’s mouth in case “Beatty might turn and read what was there, too,” so two words are the least he can say. Another might say he is not agreeing at all: he leaves out “better off” and keeps only “dead,” just after saying “But she was different.” A careful answer may notice that once Beatty has gone Montag asks Mildred, “Why should they be so afraid of someone like her?”, and ask whether that question began here.

4. Beatty admits that when a show is empty, all he feels is the noise. Then he says, “But I don’t care. I just like solid entertainment.” What makes you believe him, or doubt him?Character

What it asks It asks the student to weigh Beatty’s one plain statement about his own happiness. Near the end of the lecture he says that a man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back is “happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure, and equate the universe,” which makes a man “feel bestial and lonely.” Then: “I know, I’ve tried it; to hell with it.” He calls for clubs, parties and loud thrills, and admits that if a play is hollow, “I’ll think I’m responding to the play, when it’s only a tactile reaction to vibration. But I don’t care. I just like solid entertainment.” Then he gets up: “Lecture’s over.” The student decides whether Beatty means it, and shows what on the page says so. It takes up one part of the last written question: Beatty is the one man in the reading who says he has tried both kinds of life and chosen his. Do not say that Beatty secretly loves books or is on Montag’s side; he says “the books say nothing.” Do not make him a straw man either: taking him at his word is a fair answer.

A strong answer A strong response might take him at his word: he knows his fun is “only a tactile reaction to vibration” and chooses it anyway, because measuring the universe left a man feeling “bestial and lonely,” and he sits down “with a peaceful look on his ruddy face.” Another might doubt him: “to hell with it” sounds angry, not easy, and a man who did not care would not come to a sick fireman’s house to make so long a case, ending “We depend on you.” A careful answer may notice that both can be true: Beatty may not care whether a play says anything and still care a great deal about “our happy world as it stands now,” and ask what it costs a man to decide not to care.

5. Montag says he wants to smash things and kill things. Mildred answers, “I always like to drive fast when I feel that way.” What does she know about that feeling?Character

What it asks It asks the student about Mildred’s answer to Montag’s anger. Once Beatty has gone, Montag says, “Right now I’ve got an awful feeling I want to smash things and kill things.” Mildred does not ask why. She tells him to take the car: “I always like to drive fast when I feel that way. You get it up around ninety-five and you feel wonderful.” She sometimes drives all night without his knowing, and “You hit rabbits, sometimes you hit dogs.” Montag says no; he wants “to hold on to this funny thing.” A little later, when he says he is not happy, she says, “I am.” Then, “And proud of it.” The student decides what Mildred knows about the feeling. It takes up one part of the last written question: Mildred is the reading’s test of Beatty’s promise. The prompt names Montag’s wish to “smash things and kill things” plainly, as the page does; he says it, not she. Do not make Mildred empty and nothing more.

A strong answer A strong response might say she knows the feeling well: “I always like to drive fast when I feel that way,” and she has a cure ready, drives all night “and you don’t know it,” and on those drives “You hit rabbits, sometimes you hit dogs.” Another might say she knows almost nothing about it: she never asks why he feels it, speed makes her “feel wonderful,” and when he tries to explain she is “tired of listening to this junk.” A careful answer may set her cure beside Montag’s refusal, “I want to hold on to this funny thing,” and beside her “And proud of it,” and ask whether a person who needs that cure is as happy as she says.

6. Montag reads that eleven thousand people died “rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end.” Mildred says it means nothing. What, if anything, does it mean?Theme

What it asks It asks the student to make sense of the first thing the books give back. Montag has picked up a small book and opened it. The front door voice fades, and footsteps go away. He reads “a dozen pages here and there,” and comes to a line: “It is computed that eleven thousand persons have at several times suffered death rather than submit to break eggs at the smaller end.” Mildred asks, “What does it mean?” and answers herself in the same breath: “It doesn’t mean anything! The Captain was right!” Montag says only “Here now,” and “We’ll start over again, at the beginning.” The student does what Mildred would not: stays with the line and says what, if anything, it means, using only the reading. It takes up one part of the last written question: if this is all the books give back, Beatty’s case gets stronger. The line is from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, but the reading does not say so, and the student needs no outside knowledge; “nothing” is a fair answer if it is argued. Do not say that reading will make Montag happy or wise; the reading ends on starting over. Do not say who was at the door; Mildred only guesses.

A strong answer A strong response might say it means nothing worth having: thousands dying over how to break an egg sounds like the fights Beatty warned of, “one philosopher screaming down another’s gullet,” so the line Montag lands on seems to prove “The Captain was right!” Another might say it means something: the line is about people who “suffered death rather than submit,” and refusing to give in is exactly what Beatty’s world trains out of people. A careful answer may notice that the line lands in a house where Montag has just refused to let the books be burned, that Mildred asks “What does it mean?” and does not wait for an answer, and that Montag’s reply is to “start over again, at the beginning.”

Critical thinking

1. For a year, Montag hid books in the house and never told Mildred. Now he drops them at her feet and says, “we’re in this together.” He calls this fair. Is it?

What it asks It asks the student to judge Montag as a husband, not only as a rebel, and to test his own word, “fair.” After Beatty leaves, Montag tells Mildred, “This is your house as well as mine. I feel it’s only fair that I tell you something now.” He has hidden books behind the air-conditioning grille “during the past year,” and “I never told you.” He drops some twenty at her feet and says, “I didn’t really think. But now it looks as if we’re in this together.” When she seizes a book and runs for the kitchen incinerator, he catches her: “He slapped her face, he grabbed her again and shook her.” Then he pleads for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, and promises that if the Captain is right, “we’ll burn them together.” When the door voice calls, Mildred whispers that Beatty has come back and says, “He’ll come in,” to “burn us and the books!” The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest case for the other side. It takes up one part of the last written question: what Montag’s reaching for costs the person beside him. Name the slap plainly, and the year of hiding; do not make Montag a clean hero. Do not make Mildred’s run for the incinerator foolish; she is afraid of the fire. Do not say who is at the door.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue it is not fair: he hid the books “during the past year” and “never told” her, so the danger came into her house without her say, and when she runs for the incinerator, “He slapped her face, he grabbed her again and shook her.” Another might argue it is as fair as he can now make it: “This is your house as well as mine,” he says, and he pleads rather than orders, promising “we’ll burn them together” if the Captain is right. A careful answer may notice that Montag names the mess as already shared, “you and the medicine at night, and the car, and me and my work,” and ask whether they were in it together before the books came down.

2. Montag agrees with Beatty that happiness is important, yet he feels he is not happy. Is Beatty’s kind of happiness worth having?

What it asks This is the last question the student meets, and it gathers the earlier ones: how much of Beatty’s speech reaches Mildred, how well Beatty answers “what about the firemen, then?”, what Montag is doing with “Yes, dead.”, whether to believe Beatty when he says “I don’t care,” what Mildred knows about the urge to smash things and kill things, what, if anything, the line about the eggs means, and whether Montag is being fair to Mildred when he says “we’re in this together.” Now the student judges Beatty’s promise itself. Beatty says that, thanks to the way things went, “you can stay happy all the time,” and that the firemen are “the Happiness Boys.” He ends one stretch with “Burn them all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean.” Once he has gone, Montag tells Mildred, “He’s right. Happiness is important. Fun is everything. And yet I kept sitting there saying to myself, I’m not happy, I’m not happy.” The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest objection. Do not make Beatty a straw man; Montag himself says “He’s right.” Do not say that reading will make Montag happy or wise; the line he reads leaves him with “We’ll start over again, at the beginning.”

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue it is not worth having: it keeps people happy by teaching them to “Forget them,” it calls Clarisse “better off dead,” and it fails the very man who agrees with it, who sat “saying to myself, I’m not happy, I’m not happy.” Another might argue it is worth having, or hard to refuse: Beatty is right that “You ask Why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed,” Mildred is happy “And proud of it,” and what Montag has instead, so far, is one strange line about eggs. A careful answer may set Beatty’s “I don’t care” beside Montag’s “I want to hold on to this funny thing,” and ask whether a happiness you have to stop thinking to keep is still happiness.