Part Two, Reading 3 — Teaching Companion

What it asks It asks the student to listen to how the women talk before anyone says anything that matters. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles come in “screaming at each other above the din,” and the greeting runs: “Doesn’t everyone look nice!” “Nice.” “You look fine, Millie!” “Fine.” “Everyone looks swell.” “Swell!” Mildred adds, “Isn’t this show wonderful?” and answers herself, “Wonderful!” The pattern comes back once the walls are dark: Mrs. Phelps says, “I’ll let old Pete do all the worrying,” and Mildred echoes, “Let old Pete do the worrying.” The student decides what the echoing is for. It takes up one part of the last written question: what kind of room the poem will be read into. Do not make the women fools to laugh at; ask what the echo gives them, not only what it lacks.

One reading

Nothing real. The words are worn so thin they carry nothing, like the noise of the walls. Montag just stands and watches, because there is nothing to answer.

• Doesn’t everyone look nice!
• Montag stood watching them.

Another reading

Company. Saying a friend’s word back is a way of agreeing and holding together. When the talk turns to the war, Mildred does it again, as if to keep a friend steady.

• I’ll let old Pete do all the worrying.
• Let old Pete do the worrying.

Listen for

• Reads the greeting aloud and notices that each answer only repeats the line before it.
• Finds the echo again when the talk turns to Pete and the war.
• Says what the echo gives the women, not only what it lacks.
• Does not make the women fools to laugh at.

If stuck

• What does each woman answer when the one before her speaks?
• What does Mildred say right after Mrs. Phelps says she will let Pete do the worrying?
• When do you say back exactly what a friend just said?

A strong answer A strong response might say the echoing is for nothing: “Nice,” “Fine” and “Swell!” add nothing new, the women are “screaming at each other above the din,” and Montag only “stood watching them.” Another might say it gives them company: to echo a friend is to agree with her, and when Mrs. Phelps says “I’ll let old Pete do all the worrying,” Mildred answers at once, “Let old Pete do the worrying,” which holds the room together just when it might crack. A careful answer may notice that the echo comes back exactly when the war comes up, and may ask what the women are holding off.

What it asks It asks the student to weigh a promise between a husband and a wife. The Army called Pete yesterday: “Quick war. Forty-eight hours they said, and everyone home.” Mrs. Phelps says “I’m not worried” twice, and the women agree, “It’s always someone else’s husband dies, they say.” Then: “Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It’s our third marriage each and we’re independent. Be independent, we always said. He said, if I get killed off, you just go right ahead and don’t cry, but get married again, and don’t think of me.” The student decides what kind of love this is. It takes up one part of the last written question: Mrs. Phelps will cry before the night is out, against a rule she and Pete made together. Do not say why she cries; she says only “I just don’t know.”

One reading

A generous love. Pete wants her free if he dies, not stuck in grief. He gives her leave to go on living, and they both prize standing on their own feet.

• Be independent, we always said.
• you just go right ahead and don’t cry, but get married again

Another reading

A love that is afraid to feel. If no one cries and no one remembers, nothing can hurt. The women talk about the war the same way, as if death only happens to other people.

• Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that.
• It’s always someone else’s husband dies, they say.

Listen for

• Uses Pete’s exact words, not a softened version.
• Sets the promise beside “It’s our third marriage each.”
• Notices that the promise covers remembering as well as crying.
• Does not say why Mrs. Phelps cries later.

If stuck

• What did Pete tell her to do if he is killed?
• What does Mrs. Phelps say, twice, about being worried?
• Can asking someone not to grieve for you be a kind thing to ask?

A strong answer A strong response might call it a generous love: Pete tells her to “go right ahead,” and the two of them always said, “Be independent,” so he is setting her free in advance. Another might call it a love afraid to feel: “no tears, nothing like that” and “don’t think of me” ask her to forget him as well as not to cry, and the women’s “It’s always someone else’s husband dies” keeps death at the same safe distance. A careful answer may notice that the promise was made by both of them (“Pete and I always said”) and may set it beside what happens to Mrs. Phelps later in the evening, without saying why she cries.

What it asks It asks the student to stand inside Montag at the moment he breaks the silence. He has pulled the main switch, and the women sit “burning with tension.” “Montag moved his lips.” He says, “Let’s talk.” “The women jerked and stared.” Then he asks after Mrs. Phelps’s sons and daughters. She answers, “You know I haven’t any!”, adds that no one in his right mind would have any, and is “not quite sure why she was angry with this man.” Later Montag rages at “the way they jabber about people.” The student decides why Montag asks a question whose answer, she says, he already knows. It takes up one part of the last written question: whether Montag means to reach these women or to hurt them. Do not make Montag the hero of the scene.

One reading

A fight. Mrs. Phelps says he already knows she has none, so the question can only sting. She is angry before she knows why.

• You know I haven’t any!
• not quite sure why she was angry with this man

Another reading

A real talk. After the walls go dark he asks about something that matters, sons and daughters instead of a show. Mildred hears it that way too, and tries to give him the talk he wants.

• Let’s talk.
• Let’s talk politics, to please Guy!

Listen for

• Uses Mrs. Phelps’s “You know”: she says he knew the answer.
• Weighs “Let’s talk” as an offer, a dare, or both.
• Notices that Mrs. Phelps is angry and cannot say why.
• Does not make Montag the hero of the scene.

If stuck

• What has Montag just done to the walls before he speaks?
• What does Mrs. Phelps say he already knows?
• Can one question start a talk and pick a fight at the same time?

A strong answer A strong response might say he asks to start a fight: Mrs. Phelps answers, “You know I haven’t any!”, so the question could only press on a sore place, and she is angry before she is “quite sure why.” Another might say he asks to start a real talk: his first words after the silence are “Let’s talk,” sons and daughters are about as real a subject as there is, and Mildred hears him that way, offering “Let’s talk politics, to please Guy!” A careful answer may notice that Montag gets both, a quarrel about sons and daughters and a talk he soon calls “these monsters talking about monsters,” and may ask whether he could have known which one he wanted.

What it asks It asks the student to read Mildred at the moment she takes charge. Montag has come back with a book of poetry and ordered the women to “Sit down!” Faber tells him to “play it as a joke” and throw the book in the incinerator, but Mildred cannot hear Faber, and “Mildred had already anticipated this in a quavery voice.” She tells her friends that “once a year, every fireman’s allowed to bring one book home, from the old days, to show his family how silly it all was,” so that “none of us will ever have to bother our little old heads about that junk again, isn’t that right, darling?” Then she “snatched the book with a laugh” and picks the poem herself. The student decides whom the story serves. It takes up one part of the last written question: Mildred tells her friends the book is silly before a word of it is read. Do not say the visit leads anyone to report Montag; the reading does not show it.

One reading

Montag. She covers for him the moment he is in danger, before he can follow Faber’s advice, and she asks him to back the story up: “isn’t that right, darling?”

• Mildred had already anticipated this in a quavery voice.
• Guy’s surprise tonight is to read you one sample to show how mixed-up things were

Another reading

Herself and her evening. The story makes the book silly and her husband a joke, so her friends can stay and the party can go on. She is saving the cheer, not him.

• to show his family how silly it all was, how nervous that sort of thing can make you, how crazy
• Mildred snatched the book with a laugh.

Listen for

• Notices that Mildred cannot hear Faber, yet she is already doing what he tells Montag to do.
• Weighs “quavery”: what her voice gives away.
• Asks whether the story protects Montag, shames him, or does both.
• Does not say anyone reports Montag.

If stuck

• What does Mildred tell her friends about firemen and books?
• Who picks the poem Montag reads?
• Can you protect someone and make them look small in the same breath?

A strong answer A strong response might say she is looking after Montag: she “had already anticipated this,” in a voice that shakes, and she hands him the same way out Faber was whispering. Another might say she is looking after herself and her party: the story calls the book “junk” and says it shows “how silly it all was,” so her friends need not leave and nothing in her parlour has to change; she even “snatched the book with a laugh.” A careful answer may notice that the story shames the man it shields, and may ask why Mildred, of all people, is the one who picks the poem.

What it asks It asks the student to hear the poem as these listeners hear it. Mildred hands it over: “Here’s that real funny one you read out loud today. Ladies, you won’t understand a word. It goes umpty-tumpty-ump.” Montag reads two parts of it. In the first, the speaker hears the “Sea of Faith” going out with “Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.” The second begins “Ah, love, let us be true To one another!”, says the world has “neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,” and ends “Where ignorant armies clash by night.” The listeners are women whose husbands, as Mrs. Phelps says, “come and go,” and the Army called Pete yesterday for a “Quick war.” The student picks the line that lands hardest in this room. It takes up one part of the last written question: what Montag actually set loose. Do not turn this into a lesson about poetry in general, and do not say why Mrs. Phelps cries.

One reading

The armies. The poem ends on soldiers fighting blind in the dark, read to women whose husbands have gone to a war they were told would be quick.

• Where ignorant armies clash by night.
• Quick war. Forty-eight hours they said, and everyone home.

Another reading

The plea to be true. It asks two people to hold on to each other, in a room where marriages come in threes and a husband says, “don’t think of me.”

• Ah, love, let us be true To one another!
• It’s our third marriage each and we’re independent.

Listen for

• Picks a line and says who in the room it would land on.
• Uses something a woman said earlier in the evening, not only the poem.
• Notices that Mildred has heard the poem before (“you read out loud today”) and still calls it funny.
• Does not say why Mrs. Phelps cries.

If stuck

• What did Mildred tell her friends the poem would sound like?
• What are the last words Montag reads?
• Which of the women’s own words from earlier would sit worst beside that line?

A strong answer A strong response might pick the last line, “Where ignorant armies clash by night,” read to women told it would be a “Quick war” with “everyone home.” Another might pick “Ah, love, let us be true To one another!”, read to a woman whose third marriage was built on “Be independent” and “don’t think of me.” Another might choose “nor help for pain,” in a room where the cure for any trouble is to turn the walls back on. A careful answer may notice that Mildred promised “you won’t understand a word,” and may ask whether a listener has to understand a line for it to land.

What it asks It asks the student to judge a way of looking. With the walls dark, Montag “said nothing but stood looking at the women’s faces as he had once looked at the faces of saints in a strange church.” As a boy he stood in that church a long time, “trying to be of that religion,” and felt “nothing, nothing”; “his currency strange and unusable there.” “So it was now, in his own parlour.” Yet the women under his gaze are not still. They twist “in their chairs,” light cigarettes, touch their “sun-fired hair,” lean forward at the sound of him swallowing, and sit “burning with tension.” 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: if the women are empty, a poem has nothing to wake and can only scare them; if they hold a feeling they never say out loud, the poem may wake it, and the waking may hurt. Do not make the women fools to laugh at, and do not make Montag the hero.

One reading

There is nothing in them. Like the painted saints, they show nothing. They smoke, fuss with their hair and study their nails, and before the switch went off Mildred was crying “Wonderful!” at the walls.

• lighting cigarettes, blowing smoke, touching their sun-fired hair and examining their blazing fingernails
• Isn’t this show wonderful?

Another reading

He cannot read what is there. As a boy he felt nothing in the church however hard he tried, and he is the same now. The women are full of feeling he cannot read: they lean toward every sound he makes and tremble with tension.

• his currency strange and unusable there
• the sub-audible trembling around and about and in the women who were burning with tension

Listen for

• Uses the church memory: Montag tried for a long time and still felt nothing.
• Notices what the women do under his gaze, not only what they say.
• Weighs “as if they had caught fire from his look”: what does his stare do to them?
• States the strongest case for the other side and answers it, in complete sentences, without making the women fools.

If stuck

• What did Montag feel in the church as a boy, and how hard did he try?
• What do the women do with their hands while he stares?
• When someone stares at you in silence, what do you do?

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue there is nothing in the faces to read: like the saints with “the porcelain eyes,” they show nothing but cigarettes, smoke, “sun-fired hair” and “blazing fingernails,” and a few minutes earlier Mildred was crying “Wonderful!” at the walls. Another might argue the trouble is in how Montag looks: in the church his “currency” was “strange and unusable,” and in the parlour the women lean forward at his swallowing and sit “burning with tension,” so there is plenty to see if he could read it. A careful answer may notice that the fingernails look “as if they had caught fire from his look,” and may ask whether a fireman’s stare is a fair way to find out what anyone feels.

What it asks It asks the student to test Montag’s aim against what came of it. Mrs. Phelps has asked for a poem, and Faber, in his ear, warns, “Montag, go through with this and I’ll cut off, I’ll leave.” Then: “What good is this, what’ll you prove?” Montag answers, “Scare hell out of them, that’s what, scare the living daylights out!” Then Mildred’s cover story promises her friends that the reading will show “how nervous that sort of thing can make you, how crazy.” He reads; “Mrs. Phelps was crying,” and “Montag himself was stunned and shaken.” Mrs. Bowles stands and glares: “You see? I knew it, that’s what I wanted to prove!” Montag drops the book in the flames, drives Mrs. Bowles out with “Go home, go home!”, and ends the night “exhausted and bewildered with himself.” 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 Montag meant to do with the poem, set beside what it did. Do not say Faber’s plan is ruined, and do not say why Mrs. Phelps cries.

One reading

Mrs. Bowles’s point. He set out to scare them, and the poem left one woman crying and another sure that poetry is sickness. To her he proved what Mildred’s story said books would show.

• that’s what I wanted to prove!
• how nervous that sort of thing can make you, how crazy

Another reading

Something only to himself. He meant to scare the women, but the one most shaken is Montag. The poem reached someone, and he did not know what to do once it had.

• Montag himself was stunned and shaken.
• But he was not angry now, only exhausted and bewildered with himself.

Listen for

• Sets Montag’s answer to Faber, “Scare hell out of them,” beside what happened.
• Names whom it was proved to, and uses that person’s own words.
• Notices that Mrs. Bowles uses Faber’s word, “prove.”
• States the strongest case for another reading and answers it, in complete sentences, without saying Faber’s plan is ruined.

If stuck

• What does Montag tell Faber he wants to do?
• Who in the room says the poem proved something?
• Who is most surprised by what the poem did?

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue he proved Mrs. Bowles’s point: he set out to “Scare hell out of them,” and she leaves calling poetry “sickness” and swearing off “this fireman’s crazy house,” which is just what Mildred’s cover story said the poem would show, “how nervous that sort of thing can make you, how crazy.” Another might argue he proved something only to himself: the one most “stunned and shaken” by the reading is Montag, and he ends the night “bewildered with himself,” not proud. A careful answer may notice that Montag’s last word to the women is not the poem but his own “Go home, go home!”, and may ask what that proves, and to whom.

What it asks This is the last question the student meets, and it gathers the earlier ones: what all the echoing is for; what kind of love asks Mrs. Phelps not to cry; why Montag asks about sons and daughters she does not have; whom Mildred is looking after with her story; which line of the poem is least funny in this room; why the women’s faces mean nothing to Montag; and what Montag proved, and to whom. Now the student judges the whole of it. Mrs. Phelps is the one who asks: “Why don’t you just read us one of those poems from your little book,” because “if we listen nice, Mr. Montag will be happy and then maybe we can go on and do something else.” Montag has told Faber he means to “Scare hell out of them.” He reads, and “Mrs. Phelps was crying.” The others sit “not touching her, bewildered by her display.” She can say only, “I just don’t know.” Mildred tells her to “snap out of it,” Mrs. Bowles calls the poem “silly awful hurting words,” and Montag drops the book in the flames and turns on Mrs. Bowles. The student writes a judgment with evidence, in complete sentences, and answers the strongest objection. Do not say why Mrs. Phelps cries; the reading never says the poem taught her anything. Do not say anyone reports Montag, or that Faber’s plan is ruined. Do not make Montag the hero or the women fools.

One reading

A kindness. She asked to hear it, and after a night of saying she is not worried she says something honest. Something reached her, even if it hurt.

• Why don’t you just read us one of those poems from your little book
• I just don’t know

Another reading

A harm. Montag read it to scare them, not to help her, and she is left sobbing while the others sit “not touching her.” Mrs. Bowles asks the question he never answers.

• Scare hell out of them, that’s what, scare the living daylights out!
• Why do people want to hurt people?

Listen for

• Takes a side and holds to it, using more than one part of the reading: the war talk, the request, the reading, what follows.
• Weighs that Mrs. Phelps asked for the poem, and the reason she gives for asking.
• Separates what Montag meant to do from what the poem did.
• States the strongest objection and answers it, in complete sentences, without saying why she cries.

If stuck

• Who asked Montag to read, and what did she hope would happen next?
• What do the others do while she cries?
• Can something that makes you cry still be good for you?

A strong answer A strong response takes a position and tests it. A student might argue a kindness: Mrs. Phelps asked to hear a poem, and after an evening of “I’m not worried” and “no tears, nothing like that,” her “I just don’t know” may be the most honest thing she says all night; something reached her, even though it hurt. Another might argue a harm: Montag read to “Scare hell out of them,” not to help her, she was left sobbing while the others sat “not touching her,” and the man who read it soon threatens to knock her friend down. A careful answer may separate the poem from the reader, asking whether the same lines read kindly would have been a gift, and may weigh Mrs. Bowles’s question, “Why do people want to hurt people?”, against her own words a moment later: “Not enough hurt in the world.”