Part Two, Reading 1 · The Sieve and the Sand — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

Montag has the books now, yet he goes looking for Faber. Can a book speak to him on its own, or does he need a person beside him?

The tension On the train he reads the Bible hoping “if you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve,” but “he read and the words fell through,” while the jingle for Denham’s Dentifrice stays so easily that the passengers’ mouths are “faintly twitching the words.”

Today's focus

Montag and Mildred spend a rainy afternoon reading in the hall, and something sniffs at the door. Montag phones the old professor he once met in the park, then rides the subway toward him with the Bible open in his hands.

The shape at a glance

On a cold November afternoon Montag and Mildred sit reading in the hall, because the parlour is dead without its walls lit. Montag reads aloud, some pages ten times. A passage about friendship filling the heart drop by drop makes him ask whether that is what happened with the girl next door; Mildred says Clarisse is dead and they should talk about someone alive. He reads “That favourite subject, Myself,” and Mildred says she understands that one. Montag says Clarisse’s favourite subject was everyone else, and that the dead men’s words point to her. Something scratches and sniffs under the front door; Mildred laughs that it is only a dog, and Montag tells her to stay where she is. Then she kicks at a book: books aren’t people, her ‘family’ is people, and Beatty might come and burn the house. Montag answers with the snake at the hospital, the woman who burned, and Clarisse in the morgue. Bombers cross the sky, and he pours out questions about the wars and the rumours he has heard; maybe, he says, the books can get them half out of the cave. The phone rings and Mildred laughs with a friend about the White Clown. Montag wonders where to find a teacher, and remembers the park a year ago: Faber, a frightened retired English professor, who talked for an hour, said what Montag sensed were poems, held his hand over a coat pocket that might hold a book of poems, and said he talks “the meaning of things.” Montag did not reach for the book, and Faber gave him his address. Now Montag finds the name still in his file and phones him. Faber cries that it is a trap, says there are no copies of Shakespeare or Plato, “None!”, and hangs up. Mildred says the ladies are coming, and the book must go back to Beatty tonight. Montag wonders which other book to hand in; Mildred shrieks and asks who is more important, she or the Bible. He hears Beatty’s voice lighting pages into black butterflies, and decides to have a duplicate made. At the door he asks whether her ‘family’ loves her; she calls it a silly question, and he wants to cry but cannot. On the subway he thinks about his numbness, and remembers trying as a boy to fill a sieve with sand for a dime. He reads the Bible fast, but the words fall through. The radio blares an advert for Denham’s Dentifrice again and again; he holds on to “Consider the lilies of the field” until he finds himself on his feet, shouting, and the passengers stare. At Knoll View he leaps through the closing door and runs up through the tunnels, the jingle drifting after him.

A way in

Before reading, ask the student to say a song or advert they know by heart without ever trying to learn it, and then something they once wanted to remember and lost. Read aloud from the opening to Mildred’s “Why should I read? What for?” and stop: ask what Mildred wants from the people in her walls. Read on to “Faber hung up.” and stop again: ask why Montag turns to Faber now. Read from there to the end without stopping, and let the train scene be as frightening as it is; the reading calls Montag’s shout “a plea, a cry so terrible.” Do not play it for comedy. Do not make Mildred only an obstacle: she is afraid for the house and the ‘family,’ and she understands one line very well. Do not say the thing at the door is the Hound, that Faber will help, whether the duplicate gets made or what Montag hands to Beatty, that his rumours about the world are true, or what the verses mean to him; the reading says none of these.

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells the reading back in three parts. First the afternoon in the hall: the dead parlour, the friendship passage and Clarisse, “That favourite subject, Myself,” the sniff at the door, “Books aren’t people,” the bombers and the cave, and the phone call. Then Faber: the park a year ago, the poems and the pocket, the address in the file, the phone call and “None!”, the ladies coming over, the substitute, Beatty’s voice, the duplicate, and the question at the door. Last, the subway: the numbness, the sieve on the dune, the Bible open, Denham’s Dentifrice, the shout, and the run up the tunnel. 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 meeting someone who turned out to be more than they seemed: a long sentence that chains what happened with “and” and includes a phrase beginning with an -ing word; a second that keeps the chain going; a third that says what the speaker knew they could do; and two short sentences that say they did not do it, and where their hands stayed. Then four sentences built like the second passage, about a task that could not be done: a long sentence that sets the scene and ends with what someone said, in quotation marks; a sentence built on “the faster …, the faster …”; three short clauses in a row, joined by commas; and a still last sentence that opens with where the person is sitting.

Debate Take sides on the last written question. First make two lists together. Reasons Montag needs a person: alone on the train “he read and the words fell through”; after an afternoon of reading he wonders “where do you find a teacher this late?”; he “wanted to hear it from Faber himself”; Faber talks “the meaning of things”; the passage that reached him reached him through Clarisse. Reasons a book can speak on its own: the friendship passage reached him in the hall with no teacher; he says the dead men’s words “point, one way or another, to Clarisse”; the train failed him through noise and hurry, not loneliness; reading a page ten times aloud is a reader making room for a book, with no one else there. One side argues each, with a reason and a line from the reading, then they switch. Neither side may say that Faber will help.

Purpose Close on where the reading stops: Montag running up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wants to feel his own body move, while “Denham’s Denham’s Denham’s” drifts after him. Ask why Bradbury ends on a run rather than at Faber’s door. Then go back to the cousin on the dune, who set the boy a task that could not be done. Ask whether anyone has set Montag such a task this time, or whether he set it himself. If there is time, ask the student which line from the train is still in their head now, the verse or the jingle, and what Bradbury did to put it there.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud together the paragraph about the yellow dune and the one after it, to “I will myself to do it.” Then read the train scene aloud and talk through the fifth discussion question (what has changed between the boy who cried without a sound and the man who shouts). Then answer the last written question aloud, starting from what happens to the words when Montag reads alone, and whom he goes looking for.

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, 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 rhythms side by side: Faber talking “in a cadenced voice” in the park, and the passengers tapping their feet to “one two, one two three.” Ask what separates a voice that carries meaning from a beat that only repeats, using only the reading. The answer must not say that Faber will help Montag.

Discussion

1. Montag reads aloud in the hall all afternoon, and Mildred says, “there isn’t anybody!” Why doesn’t he count as somebody to her?Character

What it asks It asks the student to turn Mildred’s complaint on the man in front of her. All afternoon Montag reads in the hall, sometimes “a page as many as ten times, aloud,” while Mildred keeps looking in at the dead parlour. When the friendship passage makes him ask about Clarisse, she says, “She’s dead. Let’s talk about someone alive, for goodness’ sake.” After the sniff at the door she kicks at a book: “Books aren’t people. You read and I look around, but there isn’t anybody!” Then she says what people are to her: her ‘family’ in the walls, who “tell me things; I laugh, they laugh!” The student decides why the man reading aloud beside her does not count. It takes up one part of the last written question: Mildred says a book cannot be a person, and Montag is the person holding it. Do not make Mildred only an obstacle; she says plainly what she wants from people, and she does understand “That favourite subject, Myself.” Do not say the thing at the door is the Hound; she calls it a dog.

A strong answer A strong response might say Montag is not reading to her at all: he repeats a line and “squinted at the wall,” and when she speaks of Clarisse he “did not look back at his wife” and walks off down the hall, so the voice in the hall never turns to her. Another might say she is looking for what the walls taught her people are: they “tell me things; I laugh, they laugh!”, and a man reading one page ten times does none of that. A careful answer may notice that the one line Mildred does take in is “That favourite subject, Myself,” and that Montag answers it with Clarisse, the first person “who looked straight at me as if I counted.”

2. Montag hopes the books can get them “half out of the cave.” Why not all the way out?Theme

What it asks It asks the student to weigh how much Montag expects from the books. When Mildred asks, “Why should I read? What for?”, Montag answers with the snake at Emergency Hospital, the woman who burned, and Clarisse in the morgue. Then bombers cross the sky over the house, and he pours out questions: why does no one talk about them, how is it that “We’ve started and won two atomic wars since 1960,” is it because “we’re having so much fun at home we’ve forgotten the world?” He has heard rumours that the world is starving and that “we’re hated so much.” Then: “Do you know why? I don’t, that’s sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave.” The phone rings before he can finish “and maybe…”, and a few minutes later he wonders, “where do you find a teacher this late?” The student decides why he hopes for half and not the whole way. It takes up one part of the last written question: what the books can do on their own, by Montag’s own guess. Do not say the rumours are true; Montag says he has heard them and does not know. The cave needs no outside knowledge (teachers may hear Plato in it, and Montag names Plato on the phone later); take it as Montag’s own picture of being shut in the dark.

A strong answer A strong response might say the books cannot do it alone: Montag cannot answer one of his own questions (“Do you know why? I don’t, that’s sure!”), so the books may show him the cave without leading him out of it, and within minutes he is asking himself “where do you find a teacher this late?” Another might say he hopes for half because he trusts the books so little: everything is hedged, “Maybe,” “They just might,” and his plan trails off into “and maybe…” when the phone rings. A careful answer may notice that the phone cuts off his speech and Mildred laughs into it, “Yes, the White Clown’s on tonight!”, and ask what that does to his half.

3. In the park a year ago, Montag knew he might pull a book of poems from Faber’s coat. What kept his hands on his knees?Character

What it asks It asks the student about a choice Montag made a year ago. In the park he sees an old man in a black suit hide something in his coat. The man leaps up as if to run: “I haven’t done anything!” They sit, Montag talks about the weather, and the man, Faber, a retired English professor, slowly loses his fear. He talks “in a cadenced voice,” and says something Montag senses is “a rhymeless poem,” then another. “Faber held his hand over his left coat-pocket and spoke these words gently, and Montag knew if he reached out, he might pull a book of poetry from the man’s coat. But he did not reach out. His hands stayed on his knees, numbed and useless.” Then: “I don’t talk things, sir,” said Faber. “I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I’m alive.” The student decides what held Montag’s hands still. It takes up one part of the last written question: here are a book in a pocket and a man saying poems aloud, side by side, and Montag reaches for neither. Do not say that Faber will help Montag; the reading ends before Montag reaches him.

A strong answer A strong response might say he chose not to: Faber had lost his fear and “spoke these words gently,” and to reach for the book would have stopped the man who talks “the meaning of things” and made Montag the fireman Faber had feared. Another might say he could not move: his hands were “numbed and useless,” a word that comes back on the subway (“I’m numb, he thought”), and he did the same with Faber’s name, which “He hadn’t turned it in and he hadn’t erased it.” A careful answer may notice that Faber gave him something anyway, an address “For your file,” and that a year later it is the man, not the book in the pocket, that Montag sets out to find.

4. After Montag asks if Mildred’s ‘family’ loves her “with all their heart and soul,” he wants to cry. Who was he really asking about?Inference

What it asks It asks the student about Montag’s last words to Mildred in the reading. She is excited: the ladies are coming over, and the White Clown is on tonight. He has just decided he must have a duplicate of the Bible made before he gives a book to Beatty. At the door, with his back turned, he asks, “Does the White Clown love you?” She does not answer. He starts again, licks his lips, and asks, “Does your ‘family’ love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart and soul, Millie?” She says, “Why’d you ask a silly question like that?” and “He felt he wanted to cry, but nothing would happen to his eyes or his mouth.” The student decides whom the question is really about. It takes up one part of the last written question: earlier that afternoon a book told Montag how friendship forms, drop by drop, and he asked whether that was what happened with Clarisse. Do not hear the question as cruelty only; the reading says he wanted to cry after it. Do not say whether the duplicate gets made.

A strong answer A strong response might say it is about Mildred: he asks “Does the White Clown love you?”, waits through her silence, and then asks again at length, pausing to lick his lips, as if to make her hear that the walls cannot love anyone. Another might say it is about himself: the person who “looked straight at me as if I counted” is dead, his wife has the walls, and after he asks, it is he who “wanted to cry, but nothing would happen to his eyes or his mouth.” A careful answer may notice Mildred’s last words to him, “If you see that dog outside,” she says, “give him a kick for me,” and ask whether she heard the question at all.

5. As a boy, Montag cried over the sieve “without a sound,” but on the train he shouts out loud. What has changed?Author's choice

What it asks It asks the student to set two moments side by side. On the subway Montag remembers a hot summer day on a yellow dune, when some cruel cousin had said, “Fill this sieve and you’ll get a dime!” The faster he poured, the faster it sifted through, and at last, “without a sound, he felt the tears move down his cheeks.” Now he tries the same thing with the Bible: “if you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve.” The words fall through, the jingle for Denham’s Dentifrice blares, and he holds on to “Consider the lilies of the field” until “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” breaks out of him. The reading calls it “a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet.” A little earlier, at his own front door, “He felt he wanted to cry, but nothing would happen to his eyes or his mouth.” The student decides what has changed between the silent boy and the shouting man. It takes up one part of the last written question: alone with a book, Montag reaches the end of what he can hold by himself, and the next thing he does is run on toward Faber. Do not play the train for comedy; the reading calls the shout a plea. Do not shrink the sieve to the lesson that remembering is hard; keep the boy, the dime and the cousin in view. Do not say whether the duplicate gets made, what Montag hands to Beatty, or that Faber will help.

A strong answer A strong response might say the numbness is breaking: on the subway he thinks “I’m numb,” at the door “nothing would happen to his eyes or his mouth,” and on the train the cry comes before he knows it, so that he “found himself on his feet.” Another might say what is against him has changed: the boy only watched the sand run out, but on the train the jingle pours in as fast as the verse falls through, and his “Shut up” is a man fighting back. A careful answer may notice that the boy cried alone, while the man cries out in a full car where no one hears a plea, only “The man’s off—”, and that the next thing he does is run on toward a person.

Critical thinking

1. A line about friendship reaches Montag in the hall, but on the train “Consider the lilies of the field” slips through. What made the difference?

What it asks It asks the student to compare the two times a book’s words meet Montag in this reading. In the hall, in the rain, he reads a page “as many as ten times, aloud,” and comes to: “We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over, so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.” He sits listening to the rain, then asks, “Is that what it was in the girl next door? I’ve tried so hard to figure.” Soon he says the dead men’s words “point, one way or another, to Clarisse.” On the train he reads fast, to memorize before he must hand a book to Beatty, and “he read and the words fell through.” He gets no further than “Consider the lilies of the field” and “They toil not,” while the jingle for Denham’s Dentifrice blares. The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest case for another reading. It takes up one part of the last written question: what, in this reading, lets a line reach Montag at all. Do not say what the verse means to Montag; he cannot get past “They toil not.” The verse needs no outside knowledge.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue it was the setting: in the hall he read “a page as many as ten times, aloud,” and then “sat listening to the rain,” while on the train he read fast against a deadline, under a jingle the whole car knows. Another might argue it was what he brought: he met the friendship line with a question he had “tried so hard to figure” and a person to fit it to, and he met the verse with nothing to ask, only the need that “each line must be memorized.” A careful answer may notice that the line that stayed was the one Montag could fasten to someone, the girl who “looked straight at me as if I counted,” and ask whether the verse had anyone to fasten to.

2. Suppose every line of the Bible stuck in Montag’s head, the way the jingle sticks in the passengers’ heads. What would he have then?

What it asks It asks the student to follow Montag’s plan to its end and look at what it would give him. On the train, with the Bible open and Beatty only hours away, he decides “no phrase must escape me, each line must be memorized. I will myself to do it.” He has told Mildred the book “might be the last copy in this part of the world.” Around him the passengers have done, without trying, what he cannot: they have been “tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice,” and their “mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice.” A year earlier, in the park, Faber said, “I don’t talk things, sir,” and “I talk the meaning of things.” The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest objection. It takes up one part of the last written question: what a reader has once the words are in his head, with no one beside him. Do not say whether the duplicate gets made or what Montag hands to Beatty; the plan is only a plan. Do not say what the verses mean to Montag; he cannot get past “They toil not.” Do not play the train for comedy; the reading calls Montag’s shout “a plea, a cry so terrible.”

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue he would have a Bible no one could burn: he calls it possibly “the last copy in this part of the world,” and a line in his head is the one place Beatty cannot reach, which is why he thinks “no phrase must escape me.” Another might argue he would have only what the passengers have, words that move the mouth without the mind, since their “mouths had been faintly twitching the words” of a jingle that means nothing to them, and that a line is kept only when, like Faber, you can talk “the meaning of things.” A careful answer may notice that by the end Montag holds one word, “Lilies…,” and ask whether a single word he fought for is worth more than a whole jingle he never chose.

3. Montag has the books now, yet he goes looking for Faber. Can a book speak to him on its own, or does he need a person beside him?

What it asks This is the last question the student meets, and it gathers the earlier ones: why Montag, reading aloud in the hall, does not count as anybody to Mildred; why he hopes the books can get them “half out of the cave” and not all the way; what kept his hands on his knees in the park; whom he was really asking about when he asked if her ‘family’ loves her; what has changed between the boy who cried “without a sound” and the man who shouts on the train; what let the friendship passage reach him when the verse slipped through; and what he would have if every line stuck in his head the way the jingle sticks in the passengers’. Now the student judges the whole of it. After a long afternoon with the books, Montag wonders, “where do you find a teacher this late?” He phones Faber and asks how many Bibles are left. He already knew the answer was none, “But somehow he had wanted to hear it from Faber himself.” Faber cries that it is a trap, answers “None!”, and hangs up. On the train Montag reads alone, “and the words fell through,” and he leaves the train with only “Lilies…” on his lips. The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest objection. Do not say that Faber will help; he hung up, and the reading ends before Montag reaches him. Do not say what the verses mean to Montag.

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue he needs a person: alone on the train “he read and the words fell through,” he has already asked himself “where do you find a teacher this late?”, and even a fact he knew, he “wanted to hear it from Faber himself,” the man who talks “the meaning of things.” Another might argue a book can speak on its own: the friendship passage reached him in the hall with no teacher there, and he says the dead men’s words “point, one way or another, to Clarisse”; the train failed him through noise and hurry, not loneliness. A careful answer may notice that the line that did reach him reached him through a person, Clarisse, who is dead, and ask whether someone can stand beside a reader even when they are gone.