Fahrenheit 451: Close Reading 1:



Mildred

1. Why doesn’t/can’t Mildred admit to her sleeping pill overdose? Is she in denial? Has she completely forgotten? What evidence do you see for either inference?

2. Can you picture the “parlor walls”? What modern technology did Bradbury predict here? Would that be an appealing entertainment experience?

3. How does Mildred’s “script” work? What is the TV show actually about?

Clarisse

4. Picture a dandelion. How would Clarisse’s dandelion game work? (Hint: pollen)

5. With whom is Clarisse in love?

6. With whom is Montag not in love, no matter how hard he tries to insist otherwise?

7. How could talking to a psychiatrist be like getting peeled like an onion?

8. How old is Clarisse again? How old is Mildred? Why does Montag think Clarisse seems “older” than Mildred in some ways?

9. Clarisse tells Montag, “I think it’s so strange you’re a fireman. It just doesn’t seem right for you somehow.” How does he react to this? What kind of conflict does this represent?

10. Later… What is school like for kids in Clarisse and Montag’s society? “What aspect of today’s education is missing? How might that be affecting the students?

11. What does Clarisse mean by her “funnels…poured down the spout” metaphor? What does she mean, “telling us it’s wine when it’s not”?

12. What do teenagers do for entertainment, according to Clarisse? How is that like and also different from today’s society?

The Mechanical Hound

13. How could the Hound “[sleep] but not sleep, [live] but not live”? What literary term is at work in that sentence?

14. Based on the cruel games the firemen play with small animals at the fire station, how does the Hound work? What might the firemen use it for?

15. What is the Hound’s friendly counterpart in traditional firefighter history?

16. Why does it bother Montag that the Hound growls at him? What do you think this implies about either Montag or a potential enemy?

17. Note the foreshadowing about Montag and the ventilator grill.

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