FAHRENHEIT 451 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 

  1. The second paragraph describes the burning of a house containing books. What image does this create for the reader? What might this symbolism foreshadow?
  2. What is the significance of Montag seeing his reflection in Clarisse’s eyes?
  3. Clarisse causes Montag to recall a childhood memory in which a wish is embedded. What is the significance of the memory and the wish?
  4. What two observations does Clarisse make about Montag’s conversational mannerisms?
  5. What things do the McClellan's do cause them to be classified as peculiar?
  6. What final question does Clarisse ask Montag on the night of their first encounter? Why might this question be a catalyst to the plot?
  7. When Montag enters his home, he stares at the blank wall but in memory sees Clarisse. What extended simile describes how he sees her? What is significant about the comparison?
  8. Find two further similes Montag uses to describe Clarisse. Do the similes serve any purpose other than to characterize Clarisse?
  9. Describe the bedroom Montag enters. Whom does the setting characterize?
  10. At this point of realization, what happens to the smile on Montag’s face? What is Montag’s answer to Clarisse’s question?
  11. What event occurs that night which provides Montag with an impression of the state of society? What is that impression?
  12. In contrast, what does Montag next hear and long for?
  13. Describe the new idea for the parlor walls about which Mildred is so excited.
  14. What test of love does Clarisse give Montag, and how does he respond to it?
  15. Describe Clarisse’s personality.
  16. What observations does Clarisse make about how Montag differs from other firemen?
  17. Describe the mechanical hound.

ANSWERS

1.  The image that this creates is that the firemen do not care at all if a house is burning. They joke around saying that they want to pull out some marshmallows and roast them from the burning house.
2.  The significance of Montag seeing his reflection in Clarisse’s eyes is that she is not like everyone else. She has a special feature that not everybody else has.
3.  Montag had a child memory of one time as a child when there was a power failure, and his mother had found and lit a last candle and then he found a hour of rediscovery, of such illumination that space lost its vast dimensions and drew comfortably around them, and they, mother and son, alone, transformed, hoping that the power might come on soon again.
4.  Clarisse thinks that Montag is not very happy and that he is not in love. He also laughs when she is not funny and answers before he is done thinking.
5.  5: The McClellans do funny things to classify themselves as peculiar.  First of all the girl thinks to much, she talks about men in the moon, and changes the subject when things get uncomfortable in a conversation.  Also, the uncle was arrested becuase he was a padestrians.   Another thing about the family, is they sit around with all of the lights on in the house to talk to each other.
6.  6: She asked Montag if  he was happy.  This is a question that pertains to the plot because it is the question posed that gets him thinking.  He really wonders, is he happy, and eventually he finds out that he is not happy.  Even though he keeps telling himself he is.  
7.  7: He compares her to a dial of a small clock.  That you can see the lines of her face like the minute and the numbers on the clock.  It glows, like the numbers on the clock.
8.  Two other similes are one, her eyes were like a mirror.  She is showing what he could be.  Not everyone is the same.  One other is said that Clarisse is like a marionette show.
9.  The bedroom that Montag enters was dark and really quite. As he walks through the room he knows that there is something on the floor but he still hits. The sitting characterizes
10. The smile on Montag’s face goes away because he finds his wife lying on the bed motionless. She had have an over doss on sleeping pills and he was really sad. Montag’s answer to Clarisse’s question was yes when she first asked him but when he started to think about it more about it he wasn’t happy.
11. The event that occurs that night which provides Montag with an impression of the state of society is when he finds his wife lying on the bed because she had for gotten that she already had taken her pills. The impression was that she was dead.  
12.  In contrast, Montag hears and longs for someone who will want to listen to him. He wants someone to love and be happy with. He is not happy in his life right now because no one loves him.  
13. The new idea for the parlor walls is adding another wall or the fourth wall. This excites Mildred because she can have more people to talk to and she can have more characters.
14.  df
15. Clarisse is kind and loving to Montag. She is generous and is like a daughter to the wild firefighter Montag. In addition, she  is also funny and very smart.
16. The observations that Clarisse makes of Guy is that whenever she says something crazy and insane, he does what she says. When Clarisse asked Montag to look up at the moon and look for the man, Guy looked on the moon. Clarisse finds this characteristic and tells Montag that he is different than the other firemen.
17. The mechanical hound has steel needles that inject morphine into people. This mechanical hound barks at Montag all of the time. Montag fears for his life and is very afraid of the dog.
18. Antisocial means that a person is not very talkative and does not socialize very well with people. In this case, antisocial means that people talk to much and are very social. This term applies to Clarisse. 

PAGE 71-110 Answers 

19. Clarisse says people in this novel talk about sports and teams. 

20. During the card game, Montag asks if firemen a long time ago use to put out fires instead of set them. This questions that Montag says to the firemen suggest that he is eager to know the truth and wants to know of things no one else knows. 

2. Mildred worries a lot she always wants to be like everyone else. She tries really hard to fit in with everyone.
4. The sand goes right through the sieve, and Montag is reading the books and the information is going right through him and he is not remembering anything that he is reading.
5.The significance of this commercial is how this commercial is trying to brainwash Montag. Montag is trying to memorize the bible when this commercial is playing in the background. He is trying to memorize the words but it is not working. 

1. Montag goes to see Faber because he wants to go hear more information on the bible and doesn't really believe him on the phone. He wants to go see the bible also. Montag wants to talk to Faber in person because he wants to remember the things he has heard.

2. Faber tells Montag about the books even though Faber thinks that Montag is talking to Faber to help him in a trap. 

3. The three things that Faber tells Montag are missing from society are "The people's society is lacking quality," "Leisure to digest," and the "Right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two."

5. This quote from Faber is saying that Montag has a good plan but it would be highly impossible to change the minds of the people living in the city. Montag would have to convince all of the people that burning books are bad. 

7. The device that Faber gave Montag was a seashell radio that listens. If you put it in your ear, it can sit comfortably home, warming the frightened bones and hear and analyze the fireman's world, find its weaknesses, without danger. 

1. The parlor women are like a monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes. They had Cheshire cat smiles burning through the walls of their house, and now they were screaming at each other above the din. The parlor women are very gossipy and talk about the latest romances and war. 

3. In Fahrenheit 451 the things that are representative of the lifeless waters are Montag and Mildred, and the people of the towns because they really have no part in society. They do what they are told and do not go any further than that. No questions asked. 

4. After hearing the poem, some of the women cry and over react because they have never heard stories that are sad before. 

5. Their reaction supports Beatty's speech because he told Montag that the truth makes people sad and they don't want to hear about reality. We can tell that he is telling the truth by how these women over reacted.

Fahrenheit 451 Questions 

What is Mildred’s main concern as she runs out the house?
What does Beatty say is the real beauty about fire?
What feelings does Montag have about burning his house?
While Montag is in flight from the scene of Beatty’s murder, what thought occurs to him about Beatty?

1. Mildred's main concern as she runs out of the house is that Beatty will find out that they are keeping books in their house and reading them. 

2. Beatty says that fire cleanses and purifies people and all things. The beauty about fire is, it can get rid of anything you put the lighter to. 

3. Montag feels very guilty and sad about burning his house but he was forced to do this job. Although he felt sad about burning his house, he felt happy when he was able to burn the parlor walls of his house. 

4. The thought that comes to the mind of Montag is that the whole time when Beatty was arguing with Montag about the books, he wanted to die. He was starting an argument with Montag to get him worked up so he could be killed.

STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS

1. How has Beatty given Montag hints that he is under suspicion?

  • Beatty sent the Mechanical Hound to Montag's house to warn him that someone knew of his mysterious books under his pillow. 

2. Who must have brought the books back from the garden?

  • The person who brought the books in from the garden was Mildred. However, she did not bring all the books from the garden. 

3. Who (3) TURNED IN AN ALARM AGAINST Montag? 

  • The people who turned in the alarm against Montag were Mildred, Mrs. Phelps, and Mrs. Bowles. 

4.  What happened to Montag’s green bullet?

  • Montag's green bullet was destroyed by fire from the burning of Montag's house. 

5.  Why did Montag burn Beatty's body?

  • Montag burned Beatty's body because Montag thought Beatty was going to trace the green bullet to Faber and kill him. 

6.  What is Montag’s plan to escape?

  • Montag's plan to escape is go across the country to the river and down to the railroad tracks. Faber is suppose to turn on the air conditioner, turn on the sprinklers, and burn everything in the house that might leave tracks that trace back to Montag. 

7.  How much money did Montag give Faber?

  • Montag gave Faber 100 dollars to spend on copying books. 

8.  How many scents can the mechanical hound remember?

  • The Mechanical Hound can remember 10,000 scents from around the town. 

9.  Why did Montag want Faber to turn on the air conditioning and sprinklers?

  • Montag told Faber to turn on the air conditioner and sprinklers because Montag wanted to erase the tracks and evidence he might have left in the house because he did not want to be caught. 

10. Interpret “Twenty million Montag's running, soon, if the cameras caught him.”

  • The twenty million Montag's symbolize the people in the town watching Montag on their televisions. 

11. Why did the search for Montag veer inland?

  • The search for Montag veered inland because they did not think that he could cross the river and they didn't want to upset the people in the town's so they caught some random person and killed them. 

12. Who died in Montag’s place?

  •   In Montag's place, Captain Beatty was burned to death and chared. 

13. What did Granger mean by “Welcome back from the dead.”

  • The quote, "Welcome back from the dead," meant that Montag had a new identity. His old identity left him when he crossed the river. Montag, through all of his trials, became a new person. In addition, the man killed walking in the streets was supposedly Montag but wasn't really him. 

14. When Granger and other like minded people are stopped by authorities, why isn’t any incriminating evidence found?

  • The isn't any evidence found because the men living with Montag had burned the books and memorized the information inside them. 

15. Do you have a sense that there are other “book chapters” in other towns.  What “proof do you have?

  • I have a feeling that there are other book chapters in other towns because of Faber and how he traveled to St. Louis to copy some of the books that were burned in the town that Montag was living in. 

16. What does Granger mean by his quote “You’re not important.  You’re not anything.”? 

  • In this quote Granger is talking about how no one cares about them and how they are just an ordinary person like the people in the town's. All they have with them is their knowledge of the truth. 

17. Explain the last implications of the events in the last 4-5 pages.

  • All of the men are dreaming of what kind of perfect world they want to create and all of the special inventions they want to create. In addition, it is time for them to start traveling to a place where they can live and dwell. They are walking across the land that was demolished by the atomic bomb and remembering the people who died. Montag is thinking about his new life in a new city.
  1. How does Montag explain how so very much could have happened in just one week?
  2. After a short time of floating in the river, Montag knows why he must never burn again. Explain his revelation.
  3. Fully describe Montag’s impressions of the land across the river.

QUESTIONS 

1. Granger's overall plan for society is to build great and powerful inventions and teach the people of the cities things that these men never were allowed to learn as they were growing up. 

2. The explanation he gives is of when Granger tells of when his grandfather died he was very sad. Granger wasn't sad when he died but of how his grandfather couldn't do special things with him any more. 

3. Granger's philosophy of life is live every second you can as though in just ten seconds you will fall to the ground and die. Get up out of your house and enjoy the gifts nature gives you. Spend them wisely. 

4. Montag imagines his wife watching the parlor walls and enjoying the television shows she is watching until, suddenly when the bomb hits, she becomes frightened and can't get out of the house. She becomes disintegrated and dies with all of the other people. In addition, Montag sees bodies fall to the ground. 

5.Granger says that there was a bird back before Christ that when put into the fire it would spring out of the ashes like he was born over and over again. He says that humans have one thing that the phoenix doesn't have. We know all the silly things we have done over thousands of years as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it. 

6. The first thing they will rebuild is a giant steam shovel, the biggest in History to dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. These men want to cover up the product this man made bomb has produced. They want to keep the past behind them and move on.

7. The promise at the end of the novel is that these men are going to build a perfect society with the people liking each other. There will be peace and beauty in the world they are going to create.