Part Two, Reading 4 · The Sieve and the Sand

Fahrenheit 451

Pathfinders · 7th–9th

Copywork

In the days to follow, and in the nights when there was no moon and in the nights when there was a very bright moon shining on the earth, the old man would go on with this talking and this talking, drop by drop, stone by stone, flake by flake. His mind would well over at last and he would not be Montag any more, this the old man told him, assured him, promised him. He would be Montag-plus-Faber, fire plus water, and then, one day, after everything had mixed and simmered and worked away in silence, there would be neither fire nor water, but wine. Out of two separate and opposite things, a third. And one day he would look back upon the fool and know the fool.

What traitors books can be! You think they’re backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives. And at the very end of my dream, along I came with the Salamander and said, Going my way? And you got in and we drove back to the firehouse in beatific silence, all dwindled away to peace.

Read both passages aloud. Faber’s voice will work on Montag slowly, “drop by drop.” Beatty’s words hit him all at once. Which is harder to stand up to?

For the educator Two passages; copy them as shown. The first comes on the train, on Montag’s way to work. Its first sentence is long and built on repeats: “in the nights when” comes twice, then “this talking and this talking,” then three pairs set off by commas, “drop by drop, stone by stone, flake by flake.” Have the student hear how the sentence goes on and on, the way the voice will. The second sentence ends on three verbs that climb, “told him, assured him, promised him”; ask what changes from the first to the third. The third holds a hyphenated name, “Montag-plus-Faber,” and three verbs joined by “and,” “mixed and simmered and worked away.” The fourth has no verb at all, and it lands harder for being short. The fifth ends by naming “the fool” twice. The second passage is Beatty at the card table, near the end of his dream. It begins partway into his speech and runs to the end of it, so it is printed without quotation marks. The first two sentences are the heart of it: a short exclamation, then a sentence that turns on “and,” “You think they’re backing you up, and they turn on you.” The third piles up “nouns and verbs and adjectives,” using “and” twice where commas would do, and holds the vocabulary word “welter.” In the fourth, Beatty repeats his own words inside his speech with no quotation marks of their own, “Going my way?”, so the question mark ends the sentence; ask the student how they can tell those words were said aloud. The fifth holds the vocabulary word “beatific” and ends on a phrase after the comma, “all dwindled away to peace.” 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. Some students will say the slow voice is harder to stand up to, because it works “in silence,” night after night, until “he would not be Montag any more,” and Montag is glad to hear it. Others will say Beatty’s words are, because they come too fast to answer and leave a reader “lost in the middle of the moor.” Some will hear the difference in their own reading aloud: the first passage opens on one very long sentence, the second on a short exclamation. Let them find this for themselves.

Discussion

Narration Tell the reading back in order, from Clarisse’s dark house to the Salamander stopping at the curb. Then pick the moment Montag comes closest to falling apart, and say how Bradbury makes you feel it.

1. On the train, Faber’s voice promises that Montag will turn from “fire plus water” into “wine.” When that happens, how much of Montag will be left?Theme

2. Montag’s feet freeze outside the firehouse, and Faber keeps talking until Montag feels “his right foot, then his left foot, move.” What in Faber’s talk got them moving?Moral reasoning

3. Beatty welcomes Montag back “now that your fever is done and your sickness over.” How does it help Beatty to call Montag’s trouble a sickness?Inference

4. Montag’s hands took the books when his conscience first woke up. So why do they seem “gloved with blood” at the firehouse?Inference

5. Montag says “I don’t know” to Faber on the train, and again to Beatty at the card table. What does he mean each time?Character

Make a Connection Think of a time two people you trusted pulled you opposite ways. How did you make up your own mind, if you did?

Vocabulary

filigree It was good listening to the beetle hum, the sleepy mosquito buzz and delicate filigree murmur of the old man’s voice at first scolding him and then consoling him in the late hour of night as he emerged from the steaming subway toward the firehouse world.Fine, delicate lacework, usually made of twisted gold or silver wire. Montag hears Faber’s voice in his ear as something light and finely made.

haggle Don’t haggle and nag them; you were so recently one of them yourself.To argue back and forth in a petty way, as people do when they bargain over a price. Faber tells Montag to stop picking at the people around him.

invigorated I must admit that your blind raging invigorated me.Filled with energy and life. Faber admits that Montag’s wild anger made him feel young again.

cite And ‘The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.’To quote words from a book or a speaker, usually to back up a point. Beatty’s line says that even the Devil can quote holy words to get what he wants.

verbiage ‘The folly of mistaking a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself as an oracle, is inborn in us, Mr. Valery once said.’Too many words, piled up without much meaning. Beatty’s last quotation warns against taking a flood of words for real truth.

welter Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives.A confused, tumbling mass of things, like a churning sea. Beatty says a reader who trusts books ends up lost in a heap of words that point every way.

beatific And you got in and we drove back to the firehouse in beatific silence, all dwindled away to peace.Calm and blissful, like a saint at peace. Beatty pictures a ride home with all the fight gone out of Montag.

Critical thinking

1. Beatty’s dream sets books against each other, and then he says, “Stick with the fireman.” What would Montag have to believe to take that advice?

2. On the Salamander, Montag thinks that reading to the women was like “trying to put out fires with water-pistols.” Where does that thought come from?

3. Beatty and Faber both try hard to win Montag over tonight. Is either of them really leaving Montag free to think for himself?